Hi,

I hav question in XP regarding the SATA HDD!. I Juz Brought a Samsung 200GB of SATA HDD. Which has 8meg. So i should get 192GB RITE?. But then XP detect onli 186GB?? only??? then how abt the 6GB of free space??? i dun how.. can someone advise mi on these issue?? or anyone has this problem before onn the sata.. Tks.. rGds..

Cheers

Ting..

It all depends on who is doing the counting. Windows XP uses the proper 1GB = 1024MB method. However, most drive manufacturers use the improper 1GB = 1000MB method.

I have two WD "250GB" drives in my system which WinXP says are 232GB drives...which comes out to 249,990,901,760 bytes. Divide that out using the drive manufacturers way and you'll get ~250GB. Divide that out using the proper way and you'll get ~232GB.

Oic.. OkIe.. Can explain more on the Manufacturers way? how should i do it? divde them using which program???

cos i got the hdd only? No Drivers or install program is given. tat y. it is OEM. so can u tell mi how do to make manufacturers way? can Gulide mi pLs... Tks AloTs

best Rgds

Ting....

What I meant by "divide" is actually divide the numbers out...as in with a calculator. I'll use my 250GB drive as an example:

Right Way

249,990,901,760 bytes / 1024 = 244,131,740 Kbytes

244,131,740 Kbytes / 1024 = 238409.9 MBytes

238409.9 MBytes / 1024 = 232.8 Gbytes

"Wrong" Way (Which most drive manufacturers use)

249,990,901,760 / 1000 = 249990901.76 KBytes

249990901.76 KBytes / 1000 = 249990.9 MBytes

249990.9 Mbytes / 1000 = 249.99 GBytes

Does that make more sense?

Manufacturers also quote the drives capacity unformatted, so you will lose some space when formatting of partitioning

Hi there,

the manufacurers count the correct way

8bits = 1byte / 1024byte = 1KB / 1024kb = 1MB / 1024MB = 1GB (corrected!)

The reason why a 250GB HDD does not show 250GB under ANY operating system

is, because some of the drive space is reserved for the internal hardrive bad sector recovery.

Sectors get faulty in a drive and you will never notice, because it has a self healing feature that grips by itself. That´s the reason you´ll never get the

whole space a drive claims to have, though it really has it.

Cheers

Edited September 27, 200520 yr by naturekid

1024byte = 1MB

8 bit = 1 byte

1024 bytes = 1KB

1024KB = 1MB

1024MB = 1GB

http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/B/byte.html

http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/k/kilobyte.html

http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/m/megabyte.html

http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/g/gigabyte.html

Newtork transfer rates and drive capacities aren't a direct translation to each other.

Edited September 27, 200520 yr by nmX.Memnoch

Tingsters,

Don't worry about it. Your computer and Windows is handling it the correct way.

Just enjoy the speed that the new SATA drive is giving you.

I find that my own SATA drive is about ten times (10X) faster than my old IDE drive.

Enjoy!

Andromeda43