Stupid Hardware Question.

[Strazos]

Just bought a WD 160gb HDD.

I go to partition it...and it shows up as having a bit over 131gb of space.

I ordered a 160gb drive. The Invoice says I ordered a 160gb drive. The HDD itself says 160gb on it.

Help?

[stray]

Just bought a WD 160gb HDD.

I go to partition it...and it shows up as having a bit over 131gb of space.

I ordered a 160gb drive. The Invoice says I ordered a 160gb drive. The HDD itself says 160gb on it.

Help?

That's a pretty big disparity, but a lot of hard drives are never what they say are.

Still.....29GB difference. I've never seen that kind of disparity. When you say the HDD "itself" says 160 on it, do you mean the HDD or just the box?

[Strazos]

It was OEM, so the HDD itself.

Could this be another goofy Windows thing? This is odd, because even POST says it's 160gb.

EDIT: For instance, my "80gb" drive is something like 74gb....

[Trippy]

You need to update your IDE hard drive controller (check to see if your motherboard has any chipset updates) and/or your Windows IDE driver depending on how old they are. There's a 128 GB (~137 in "marketing" GBs) limit on the size of a hard drive partition on older setups.

www.seagate.com/support/kb/disc/tp/137gb.pdf

[Strazos]

AH HA!

I thought it was odd that it was limited to 128gb...

EDIT: But I have no idea how to effect any solution. Also, my version of XP...um...won't use Service Packs...

[Shockeye]

Pretty simple, go out and buy a legit version of XP.

[Trippy]

Double-check that your hardware IDE controller is recognizing the full 160 GB. Then read this article to modify your registry to allow Windows to see the full capacity:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;303013

Edit: Use the registry hack at your own risk. You may want to poke around to Web to see how reliable that actually is. It was suggested on the WD site itself so I'm guessing it's more reliable than MS is implying in the above article but I've never tried it myself.

http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=928

[Strazos]

Pretty simple, go out and buy a legit version of XP.

No, I mean I have seen/heard bad things that SP's do, so I don't think I'm using them.

[Shockeye]

Pretty simple, go out and buy a legit version of XP.

No, I mean I have seen/heard bad things that SP's do, so I don't think I'm using them.

At this point there is no reason to avoid SP2.

[Strazos]

$150 when you have no money is a pretty good reason, which is the price on XP Pro w/ SP2...which is lame, because there should just be One version, which comes with full functionality.

Maybe when I start running out of room, and Need the added space...maybe then I'll upgrade again.

Though, by the time that happens, I'll probably be overhauling the entire system to run 64-bit.

[Hanzii]

$150 when you have no money is a pretty good reason, which is the price on XP Pro w/ SP2...which is lame, because there should just be One version, which comes with full functionality.

Maybe when I start running out of room, and Need the added space...maybe then I'll upgrade again.

Though, by the time that happens, I'll probably be overhauling the entire system to run 64-bit.

What?

If you have a legit version of XP Home, there's no reason not to download SP2 this instant.

And while the split between Pro and Home is a bit silly, 99% of users don't need and don't understand the added stuff in Pro.

[Krakrok]

My 160GB clocks in at 151MB. 131MB is too low. Incidently TigerDirect has a 250GB for $79 after all the rebates (link is from dealmein.net).

[Lanei]

As linked upthread, the problme you are having is that your version of windows wither isn't supporting or deosn't have enabled the 48 bit LBA support for your IDE card.  Or if the comptuer is old enough, the card itself does not support 48 bit LBA.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;q305098  for win2000
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;303013  for win XP

***

The difference between GB and GB (or GiB - which nobody uses):
The SI difeinition of 'Giga' is 10^9.  The comptuer industry's 'Giga' is 2^30.  1,000,000,000  vs 1,073,741,824

from:  http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/binary.html

Once upon a time, computer professionals noticed that 210 was very nearly equal to 1000 and started using the SI prefix "kilo" to mean 1024. That worked well enough for a decade or two because everybody who talked kilobytes knew that the term implied 1024 bytes. But, almost overnight a much more numerous "everybody" bought computers, and the trade computer professionals needed to talk to physicists and engineers and even to ordinary people, most of whom know that a kilometer is 1000 meters and a kilogram is 1000 grams.

Then data storage for gigabytes, and even terabytes, became practical, and the storage devices were not constructed on binary trees, which meant that, for many practical purposes, binary arithmetic was less convenient than decimal arithmetic. The result is that today "everybody" does not "know" what a megabyte is. When discussing computer memory, most manufacturers use megabyte to mean 220 = 1 048 576 bytes, but the manufacturers of computer storage devices usually use the term to mean 1 000 000 bytes. Some designers of local area networks have used megabit per second to mean 1 048 576 bit/s, but all telecommunications engineers use it to mean 106 bit/s. And if two definitions of the megabyte are not enough, a third megabyte of 1 024 000 bytes is the megabyte used to format the familiar 90 mm (3 1/2 inch), "1.44 MB" diskette. The confusion is real, as is the potential for incompatibility in standards and in implemented systems.

If you want to look at drive manufacturers having labeled the product while only nothing in very small print that they are using the SI prefixes, instead of what is 'understod' to be the meaning of those prefixes in the context of comptuers as being cheated of disk space, then the manufacturers are certainly guilty of it.  And since the amount of space so cheated is a fixed percentage - about 6% - it gets larger as drive capacites do. 

[Trippy]

If you want to look at drive manufacturers having labeled the product while only nothing in very small print that they are using the SI prefixes, instead of what is 'understod' to be the meaning of those prefixes in the context of comptuers as being cheated of disk space, then the manufacturers are certainly guilty of it.  And since the amount of space so cheated is a fixed percentage - about 6% - it gets larger as drive capacites do. 

I don't know if this is actually what happened but I consider the switch to the use of SI GBs when labeling hard drives as the same sort of marketing ploy that monitor makers used back in the mid to late 1980s when they switched from measuring the actual viewable diagonal measurement to the viewable size plus 1 inch in the PC-compatible marketplace (rationale being that was the total size of the picture tube though part of it is always cut off by the bezel) so monitors that were 13" viewable diagonal became 14" monitors, 16" became 17" and so on. It only took one major manufacturer to make this sort of marketing switch to have everybody else follow otherwise naive consumers would really think the 17" was larger than the 16", and the same was true in the hard drive market (don't remember who was the first to switch, maybe Western Digital?). Fortunately sanity prevailed in the LCD monitor market and they went back to using actual viewable size.

[SurfD]

Wasnt there a class action lawsuit launched against some of the big PC retailers and Harddrive manufacturers a while back regarding the disparity in "reported capacity" and "actual formatted capacity" of harddrives?

[raydeen]

from:  http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/binary.html

Once upon a time, computer professionals noticed that 210 was very nearly equal to 1000 and started using the SI prefix "kilo" to mean 1024. That worked well enough for a decade or two because everybody who talked kilobytes knew that the term implied 1024 bytes. But, almost overnight a much more numerous "everybody" bought computers (after becoming disenchanted with their digital watches and desperately needing to own the next new technological symbol of status with the justification that it would balance the family budgets, organize the kitchen recipes, assist with the 2.5 childrens' schoolwork but knowing full well that it was bought entirely for the purpose of playing 'Jumpman' and Artworx 'Strip Poker'.), and the trade computer professionals needed to talk to physicists and engineers and even to ordinary people, most of whom know that a kilometer is 1000 meters and a kilogram is 1000 grams...

I don't know exactly what this says about me and my personality, but I immediatly started to read the above passage in my head using the voice from the Hitchhiker's Guide. Douglas Adams has done horrible things to my gray matter over the years. Which made me add to it.

[Sky]

Heh. I just bought a seagate 160GB and forgot about this. I think mine formatted out to 131, too. Woops!

Nice zippy and quiet drive, though. (7200.7)

[Bunk]

What?

If you have a legit version of XP Home, there's no reason not to download SP2 this instant.

And while the split between Pro and Home is a bit silly, 99% of users don't need and don't understand the added stuff in Pro.

I think the underlined phrase above sums up his issue.

Now Strazos, be a good consumer and go out and buy a legit copy of XP, and whatever you do - make absolutely sure you don't ever let someone give you a corporate key for your illegal XP... that would be dishonest and such.

[Strazos]

I'll upgrade when I fill up the available space on the 160gb hdd and need the rest of it.

[Bunk]

Just remember, to get that extra 30 GBs, you'll likely have to repartition, which means formating.

[Strazos]

Wouldn't I just have to enable whatever OS I am using at the time to read the full capacity of the drive, and turn that into a partition?

[HaemishM]

No, partitioning the drive sets in stone the available size of the disk.

[Strazos]

But I mean, I would have open space left (I still do).

Currently, my new hdd looks something like this:

65gb: (New Games Drive)

40gb: Aux Stuff

~26gb: Unallocated

Rest: Unrecognized

So...when I eventually fix my OS to recognize the remainder of the drive, wouldn't it just combine with the 26gb that I have unused, and I could then make a new drive from it?

I know, my nomenclature sucks.

[Murgos]

No, partitioning the drive sets in stone the available size of the disk.

Except if you use something like Partition Magic or a similar product or are really, really familiar with the MBR and partition table for your particular OS.

Logical drives for teh win!