Windows XP Check hard disk free space

[raycer]

Hi

Can anyone advise me if there is another way to check the amount of free space on my hard disk apart from in My Computer on the desktop? My hard disk is 20GB and the free space shown has varied up and down in the region of 12 - 13 GB for ages although I am adding new files every day. OS: Win ME. Thanks.

 

[AbsoluteKevster]

Hello mate,

Easiest way to get a summary of your drive is to go to a COMMAND prompt (DOS prompt); and type 'CHKDSK'.

This will only give you information per-partition, so if you have multiple partitions, be sure to run this for each drive letter.

Cheers
Kev

 

[raycer]

Hi Kev

Thanks for that info. CHKDSK indicates even more free space than "My Computer".

I can relax now! I've been adding files every day for months, perhaps years with hardly any change in the indicated hard disk free space and I thought I was heading for trouble. Thanks again.

This is my first visit to this website and it is the first useful reply I have had to any query. I will be sticking to PC Review in future.

Regards, Ray

 

[AbsoluteKevster]

Hi Ray,

No problem - Happy to help & Welcome to PCReview!

Bear in mind that the figures you see listed from CHKDSK are in bytes.
(The figures in My Computer aren't shown in Bytes!)
This means that you might need to actually need to round-up.
1024bytes = 1kb, 1024kb = 1MB, 1024MB = 1GB - etc..

(This is due to binary code not being able to achieve exactly 1000...)

When it comes to free space, always allow the lesser margin.

Feel free to ask any further questions

Cheers
Kev

 

[raycer]

Hi Kevin
You're quite right.

Although I knew there are 1024kb to a MB etc, whenever I see a file size quoted in thousands or millions of kb I tend to approximate it in my
mind.

In CHKDSK my free space is shown as 14,356,416 kilobytes which I approximated to 14 GB. But divided by 1024 for MB and again for
GB gives 13.7 GB to one decimal place and My Computer gives the free space as 13.6GB - near enough!

Thanks again.

Regards, Ray