where my HD space go?

[pairdice]

i've googled this question, so i thought i would come here and ask the pros,
i have a 40 gig HDD, when i format it, the format says 38 gig is being formatted, so i'd like to know, where the heck 2 gigs went, when i haven't even installed windows yet?

thanks for replying

[Viper87227]

Because of the way its advertised.

A gigabyte as advertised on your harddrive is 1,000,000,000 bytes. However, technically, a gigabyte (or, what is sometimes refered to as a gibibyte) is 1,073,741,824 bytes. I never really understood why manufactures dont just advertise the drives as their actual size instead of a rounded up size (perhaps someone can answer this?), but such is life. Every single 40GB drive you purcahsed would have that problem, and the larger the drive gets, the most gigs you loose. My largest drive, which is a 250GB drive, rolls in at 232GB, Imagine how I feel :D

[drizzt81]

Because of the way its advertised.

A gigabyte as advertised on your harddrive is 1,000,000,000 bytes. However, technically, a gigabyte (or, what is sometimes refered to as a gibibyte) is 1,073,741,824 bytes. I never really understood why manufactures dont just advertise the drives as their actual size instead of a rounded up size (perhaps someone can answer this?), but such is life.
it's a simple 'prisoners dilemma' problem: as soon as one drive manufacturer decided to advertise their drives in gigabutes (1,000,000,000 bytes) everybody else had to pull in line with them. If two drives cost the same and one was a 38 gigibyte drive and the other a 40 gigabyte drive, which one would average Joe consumer buy?

QED.

[pairdice]

jumping Jehosophat Batman!

and i thought i was getting screwed!
man, you learn something new everyday, thanks for that reply Viper dude, but one last questiopn,
my HDD is a western digital ata100 7200rpm jobber, but the screen that comes up right after my first bios screen, and right before my Win ME slash screen, says that my HDD is running at ata33?
i have an MSI 6378x-l mobo, and i am pretty sure it supports ata100,
processor support goes up to amd xp2600.
so why can't i get ata100?

[pairdice]

i found the link to my mobo

http://www.msicomputer.com/product/p_spec.asp?model=MS-6378X-L

is Ultra dma the same as ATA ?

[protias]

well, HD manufacturers do advertise their products correctly in gigabytes. but MS is also correct in advertising they drive in gigabinary.

[unhappy_mage]

ATA33 probably means that you're sharing the drive chain with a cdrom device or you're using an 80-conductor cable. Check those first.

http://www.hardfolding.com/ftag1.php/mem/150072.png (http://www.hardfolding.com?go=38&tm=33&id=150072)http://www.hardfolding.com/utag1.php/mem/428/1.png (http://www.hardfolding.com?go=36&id=428&type=1)

[drizzt81]

ATA33 probably means that you're sharing the drive chain with a cdrom device or you're not using an 80-conductor cable. Check those first.

http://www.hardfolding.com/ftag1.php/mem/150072.png (http://www.hardfolding.com?go=38&tm=33&id=150072)http://www.hardfolding.com/utag1.php/mem/428/1.png (http://www.hardfolding.com?go=36&id=428&type=1)

i think that is what you were trying to say. For speeds greater than DMA-33 an 80-conductor cable is recommended.

[pairdice]

No the HDD is by itself, but i did use a HDD Cable from an Older IBM system circa 1998.
i had no idea cables made that kind of impact.
i know some have no notch on them which are really old cables(circa 95) but i got this cable from an 98 ibm system, and it has 1 notch on all connectors, so i thought it was an ata100 modern type?

[unhappy_mage]

Thanks for the correction. I did indeed miss the negative.

This (http://www.seagate.com/support/ts/ata/hardware/02_cable.html) guide (specifically the picture of the cables) conveys the idea we're talking about here. Make sense?

http://www.hardfolding.com/ftag1.php/mem/150072.png (http://www.hardfolding.com?go=38&tm=33&id=150072)http://www.hardfolding.com/utag1.php/mem/428/1.png (http://www.hardfolding.com?go=36&id=428&type=1)

[pairdice]

thanks Guys,

I changed my cable to a New cable i had in a new mobo box, and now i am up tp ata100
wow, cables do matter,
thanks again