[dump]

Disclaimer:
This is not to report that my reported 80GB drive doesn't format to 80GB...

- My girlfriend's laptop has an 80GB drive in her laptop (Lenovo/IBM)
- It formats to something like 74GB
- 4.5 of which is partitioned as a recovery partition (I believe)
- and the rest shows up as a 69GB in windows.

She realized today that she had a surprisingly small amount of space remaining (15GB) even though she hasn't really put much on the box.

I did a little diagnostic with WinDirStat (http://windirstat.info/) to see if her assumptions were correct & sure enough we were only able to count 36GB of actual disc usage (all files, OS included.)

So here's the math.

69GB (total) - 36GB (files) = 33GB (free)

instead, windows is reporting only 15GB free.

Has anyone run into this before? Any thoughts on what might be going on here? I haven't seen this before in my many years of windows usage.

thanks.

 

[DirtyMike]

xp, or Plug and Pray, er I mean Vista

 

[dump]

win xp

 

[DirtyMike]

Hmmm, First part I can explain, well kinda I forgot the exact terminoligy, but there isnt a back up partition, but you see a "loss" of storage from whats on teh HD to whats reported because windows simply measures/meters diffeently than the Manf does, as for the second part, sounds like its just a glitch in the reporting. I wouldnt worry about it too much, as long as widnows wont let you save something because it tells you its full. The only other thought I have is that you possible have a corrupt hard drive, but thats not too terribly likely if you not having other troubles

 

[bent^biker]

her laptop (Lenovo/IBM)
.

found the problem, seriously though, I like how windows will just do things like that "for" you lthumbsdown:

 

[Transcend]

Virtual memory/Ram disk usage can sometimes affect the disk size reporting, could that be it?

 

[DirtyMike]

Yeah for instance My 60gig main drive registers at a 55.6

and the 160 External reads as a 149

 

[sanjuro]

porn folder

 

[dump]

Virtual memory/Ram disk usage can sometimes affect the disk size reporting, could that be it?

I'm not sure... we're talking about 18GB. Seems large for virtual memory. It also didn't change after a restart... but you're right, it could be...

@bent^biker
It's a nice windows machine as they go.

@DirtyMike
See my disclaimer. The 80Gb drive formats to 74Gb, I checked w/ the disk utility and there is a separate partition that takes up 4.5GB. I assume this is a backup utility/partition. The other partition is 69GB... this is what I'm talking about.

 

[DirtyMike]

Right, got that part, I think its just a reporting glitch though. It is possible to have a corrupt drive, but I dont think thats the case. My last PC did the same thing, when I would use up the storage, It would always tell me something else that was somehow very different, in very inconsistant measurements.

 

[dump]

strange. thanks for the info. I'll tell her not to worry about it I actually just got her a 250Gb WD Passport drive, so I'm not sure what the problem is ...

 

[Silver]

How much space is dedicated to system restore and the recycle bin? I'm not sure how Windows handles reporting that space...

 

[jimmydean]

 

[Reactor]

1. drive makes usually report gigabytes as one billion, when a true gigabyte is 1.07 billion bytes. Right off the bat you have lost 7% of the space due to a difference in terminology.

2. Slack space. Disk are allocated in clusters, the size varies by OS and format type. A file almost never takes up exactly a cluster, some space is always wasted. If you have a bunch of small files the amount of wasted space tends to be larger. I've seen the mount of slack space be 25% 0r more in many cases.

 

[dump]

Gotcha... thanks for the info.

 

[binary visions]

15gb still seems like a lot to go missing, though, even taking into account the size of a gig, slack space, etc.

How old is this drive? It is possible that there is a chunk of the drive marked as bad. Also, have you tried just opening C:\, highlighting all the folders, right clicking and clicking on properties to see what kind of space is being reported?

 

[dump]

15gb still seems like a lot to go missing, though, even taking into account the size of a gig, slack space, etc.

How old is this drive? It is possible that there is a chunk of the drive marked as bad. Also, have you tried just opening C:\, highlighting all the folders, right clicking and clicking on properties to see what kind of space is being reported?

Yes, I've done that... and used WinDirStat to confirm. This is where I got the actual number of GB used.

The drive is a year old. I bought the machine for her last christmas.

 

[dump]

15gb still seems like a lot to go missing, though, even taking into account the size of a gig, slack space, etc.

How old is this drive? It is possible that there is a chunk of the drive marked as bad. Also, have you tried just opening C:\, highlighting all the folders, right clicking and clicking on properties to see what kind of space is being reported?

btw, did you see my sov pics?
|
|
V

 

[Changleen]

15gb still seems like a lot to go missing, though, even taking into account the size of a gig, slack space, etc.

How old is this drive? It is possible that there is a chunk of the drive marked as bad. Also, have you tried just opening C:\, highlighting all the folders, right clicking and clicking on properties to see what kind of space is being reported?

Not to be sexist, but general girl style pc use = slack space a-go-go. 40 trillion emails and small photos, and never a defrag to be heard of.

 

[binary visions]

btw, did you see my sov pics?

I did not. Looks like you posted at the tail end of my vacation up north - that looks sweet! Clean lines. You got that frame back when they first released it, right? I seem to remember something about you wanting a green one, then not wanting to wait for the delayed paintjob and settling for a silver... only to have the green come out of the shop a couple days after that.

Wish I was riding mine. Ah well, it'll still be there when I start again. Not enough hours in the day.

Changleen; I've got about 40 trillion emails and 20gb of photos, what are you trying to say?

Even at that... 15gb is a lot.

 

[dump]

Not to be sexist, but general girl style pc use = slack space a-go-go. 40 trillion emails and small photos, and never a defrag to be heard of.

nice. Before she came to me w/ the problem. She just ran a defrag.

 

[dump]

I did not. Looks like you posted at the tail end of my vacation up north - that looks sweet! Clean lines. You got that frame back when they first released it, right? I seem to remember something about you wanting a green one, then not wanting to wait for the delayed paintjob and settling for a silver... only to have the green come out of the shop a couple days after that.

Yup, that's pretty much the story. I'm quite happy with the silver though... fun bike.