What percentage must be alloted to primary partition.

[Bucky Breeder]

I'm only going to repeat this one more time...

Windows isn't measuring your drive sizes properly. It measures using
Gibi Bytes (2^30), not Giga Bytes (10^9).

Giga (capital G - GB) = 10^9 = 1000x1000x1000 = 1,000,000,000
Gibi (small g - gB) = 2^30 = 1024x1024x1024 = 1073741824

Neither of drives you are talking about show any 'lost space', you are
comparing 2 different scales. A drive with 500 Giga Bytes
(500,000,000,000 Bytes) will be reported as having around 465gB
(500,000,000,000 / 1024 / 1024 / 1024) by Windows because Windows uses a
binary base for counting drive space. A 160GB drive will be similarly
understated by windows and reported as having around 149gB of space. If
you don't have an up-to-date service pack for windows, then your drive
sizes might be limited to 127GB.

So 500GB = 465gB and 160GB = 149gB.

If you want to convert between the mathematical Giga bytes and the
Windows Gibi Byte figures, then divide the actualy raw GB size
(500,000,000,000) by 2^30. To convert the other way, multiply by 2^30.

Then why is Windows measuring all the lost space wrong?

That's what the OP asked!

--

"The anti-gay marriage amendment:
The president endorsed it.
The Senate discussed it.
I'm pretty sure Jerry Falwell masturbated to it."
--Jon Stewart

 

[GT]

I'm only going to repeat this one more time...

Then why is Windows measuring all the lost space wrong?

That's what the OP asked!

And I have tried to explain several times, that there is no lost space? What
lost space are you talking about?

 

[Bucky Breeder]

"GT" keeps repeating this:

And I have tried to explain several times, that there is no lost space?
What lost space are you talking about?

The space that the OP lost on his drive. S/he was robbed!!!
They told him 500 and he only got less than that. The least
we can do is pause, empathize, verify and then resume...
I certainly hope it's a class-action lawsuit! (I want my
gigibytes settlement in Microsoft coupons.)


"Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si
marmota monax materiam possit materiari?"

--

"The anti-gay marriage amendment:
The president endorsed it.
The Senate discussed it.
I'm pretty sure Jerry Falwell masturbated to it."
--Jon Stewart

 

[kony]

I'm only going to repeat this one more time...

Windows isn't measuring your drive sizes properly. It measures using Gibi
Bytes (2^30), not Giga Bytes (10^9).

WRONG. A hard drive is a binary storage device. Windows is
measuring correctly. Until a hard drive is no longer a
binary storage device, it is always "proper" to measure it
as such.

You are taking some trival knowledge about decimal versus
binary and leaping to an unfounded conclusion.

 

[GT]

I'm only going to repeat this one more time...

The space that the OP lost on his drive. S/he was robbed!!!

Nope S/he has accounted for every last byte. Only she checked it on a
calculator that uses a bizarre hybrid numbering system!

They told him 500 and he only got less than that.

No s/he got exactly 500G (500,000,000,000)

The least
we can do is pause, empathize, verify and then resume...

I think we have done more than paused, we have tried to explain the
discrepancy numerous times, but it seems to have fallen on stony ears!

I certainly hope it's a class-action lawsuit! (I want my
gigibytes settlement in Microsoft coupons.)

No, go for another company and you might want to ask for GigaBytes or
GiBiBytes instead of gigibytes

 

[GT]

A hard drive is a binary storage device. Windows is
measuring correctly. Until a hard drive is no longer a
binary storage device, it is always "proper" to measure it
as such.

You are taking some trival knowledge about decimal versus
binary and leaping to an unfounded conclusion.

Kony, we have been here before and didn't get anywhere then! I think we both
have better things to do!

No microsoft is trying to express a straight forward quantity, but using 2
bases at once! It is either expressed in decimal as 500GB (500 x 10^9) or in
binary as 111,010 x 10^100001 (see below), but there is no mathematical
standard that expresses numbers with the main part of the number in decimal
and the exponent and power in binary - that's just plain wrong!

Clearly, a hard disk is a binary storage device as it holds a series of 1's
and 0's. If this makes you feel you have to count the quantity in binary,
then please go ahead, but what confuses the rest of the world is when you
mix bases in the same numerical statement! It doesn't make any difference to
the quantity of 1's or 0's it can hold or how we count those digits. And a
500GB drive can hold 500,000,000,000 bytes, which equals 4,000,000,000,000
bits (8 bits per byte), which equals 4Tb.

I'm expressing a quantity of something using standard mathematical
abbreviations. Any quantity with 000 on the end can be abbreviated to Kilo.
Any quantity with 000,000 on the end can be expressed as Mega. Any quantity
with 000,000,000 on the end can be abbreviated to Giga. Any quantity with 12
zeros on the end can be abbreviated to Tera.

If you want to count the decimal quantity 500G (500,000,000,000) in binary,
then it is:
111,010,001,101,010,010,100,101,000,100,000,000,000
or
111,010,001,101,010,010,100,101,000,100 x 10^1001
or can be rounded down (losing some accuracy) to
111,010 x 10^100001

Clearly, the number 111,010 x 10^100001looks very confusing to
non-mathematicians.

In the above numbers I have written 10^1001 and 10^100001. These numbers are
in base 2 (binary), so 10 is equivalent to 2 in decimal.

There is no such recognised number as 500 x 10^11110 (where 500 is decimal
and the exponent and power are in binary). We can obviously calculate the
value of this expression, but it is not normal to mix bases in a numbering
system like this!

Kony, if you are counting octopuses, do you express the quantity in base 8
(octal)?

 

[Bucky Breeder]

"GT" keeps on saying this:

Nope S/he has accounted for every last byte. Only she checked it on a
calculator that uses a bizarre hybrid numbering system!


No s/he got exactly 500G (500,000,000,000)


I think we have done more than paused, we have tried to explain the
discrepancy numerous times, but it seems to have fallen on stony ears!


No, go for another company and you might want to ask for GigaBytes or
GiBiBytes instead of gigibytes

Yep... "GiBiBytes" - that's *bound* to catch on.

 

[GT]

Yep... "GiBiBytes" - that's *bound* to catch on.

Already has - you are using it when you read drive sizes in windows. It
stands for Giga Binary. There are loads of internet references, but this one
is easy reading: http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=1376

 

[kony]

Kony, we have been here before and didn't get anywhere then! I think we both
have better things to do!

Still doesn't change the fact that a hard drive is a binary
storage device. You can't arbitrarily count how many apples
you have when staring at a bushel of oranges.

The day a hard drive becomes a decimal system based-storage
device, you will be correct.

 

[GT]

Still doesn't change the fact that a hard drive is a binary

storage device.

No one said it does. I am counting how many 'slots' the drive has to offer,
not what it stores.

You can't arbitrarily count how many apples
you have when staring at a bushel of oranges.

1000 apples is the quantity as 1000 oranges, which is the same quantity as
1000 Bytes. These can all be abbreviated to 1k apple, or 1k orange, or 1k
Byte. Or do you still need to invent an extra imaginary 24 bytes, just so
the standard mathematical quantity is increased to match an an arbitrary
power of 2?

The day a hard drive becomes a decimal system based-storage
device, you will be correct.

You are contradicting yourself - you insist that since a hard drive holds 0s
and 1's, we must count the quantity of potential values using binary, but
then you go and count them in decimal yourself and multiply by 2 to a
power?!? This makes no sense at all! Truth is that you can count the
quantity of anything using whatever base you choose.

To expand on your statement: You are telling us that because something holds
values that are in 2 possible states, then we must count the quantity of
those states using a base 2 (even though you use base 10 yourself). So if we
were talking about something that could be in 6 possible states (a dice for
example), then according to your theory, we would have to count the quantity
of dice using base 6??? Nonsense. We do not need to determine how many
states something can be in before we can count how many of them we have? How
do you count cars, or people when you don't know how many states they can be
in?!?

1k = 1000 in decimal and 1111101000 in binary, but it doesn't equal 1 x
2^10. The binary number 10000000000 equals 1024 in decimal, which is more
than 1k.

 

[Robert Heiling]

Still doesn't change the fact that a hard drive is a binary
storage device. You can't arbitrarily count how many apples
you have when staring at a bushel of oranges.

The day a hard drive becomes a decimal system based-storage
device, you will be correct.

It's a shame that you've chosen to blow so much of your credibility on this
topic. Nevertheless, being so very wrong on this one does cast your opinion on
other some matters in doubt.

Bob

 

[GT]

A hard drive is a binary storage device. Windows is

It's a shame that you've chosen to blow so much of your credibility on
this
topic. Nevertheless, being so very wrong on this one does cast your
opinion on
other some matters in doubt.

I must jump to Kony's defence here. This debate is more one of opinion vs
opinion, which is why it is never resolved. Whilst he and I disagree on this
matter, he has helped me and many others with some detailed and very helpful
responses in other posts. Just because we disagree with him does not make
either his depth of his knowledge of PC hardware or his willingness to help
others any less impressive

Of course, he might consider that my very response here (in his defence)
lowers his credibility, or he might just have better things to do with his
time!

 

[Robert Heiling]

I must jump to Kony's defence here. This debate is more one of opinion vs
opinion, which is why it is never resolved.

Your opinion can't change the reality of the matter.

Whilst he and I disagree on this matter,

What is there to disagree about? Mankind used those terms for centuries and
didn't argue about them. Then in the latter part of the twentieth century, Bill
Gates and a few others found it convenient to use those same terms for a
different purpose. Most of us in the field recognize what we're dealing with and
understand the situation. We see no need to conjure up a big argument over
something that is easily understood.

he has helped me and many others with some detailed and very helpful
responses in other posts. Just because we disagree with him does not make
either his depth of his knowledge of PC hardware or his willingness to help
others any less impressive

He has (he's not alone) manufactured an artificial argument and insists that he
is right right right. It's that need to be *right* that shows up elsewhere and
damages his credibility.

Of course, he might consider that my very response here (in his defence)
lowers his credibility, or he might just have better things to do with his
time!

I'll let him make that decision.

 

[kony]

You are contradicting yourself -

Nope, you just can't accept the fact that it's a binary
storage device and as such, how much it stores is binary.

 

[kony]

It's a shame that you've chosen to blow so much of your credibility on this
topic. Nevertheless, being so very wrong on this one does cast your opinion on
other some matters in doubt.

Bob

Nice try but no cigar. It's a binary storage device.
Nothing to argue about.

 

[kony]

Your opinion can't change the reality of the matter.

Nor can yours. It'll be a binary storage device regardless
of our opinions.

 

[Robert Heiling]

Nor can yours.

That goes without saying.

It'll be a binary storage device regardless
of our opinions.

You can do the counting in binary or decimal or in any other system as you
choose. None of that changes the number of bytes on the device.

 

[GT]

Nice try but no cigar. It's a binary storage device.
Nothing to argue about.

Why do you keep repeating that - we all know and agree it is a binary
storage device. The problem is the way you count the units - you keep on
adding an extra 24 for every 1000 units you count.

Tell us Kony, when you count things using your fingers, when you reach 10,
do you add an extra 1 or 2 for good measure?

How many units of information something can hold is completely independant
to what that information is, so quantity can be measured in any number
base - that is the part you are missing.

 

[GT]

The day a hard drive becomes a decimal system based-storage

Nope, you just can't accept the fact that it's a binary
storage device and as such, how much it stores is binary.

Already told you that we are all in agreement that a hard disk stores binary
numbers.

Kony, here is your self-contradiction - you insist (wrongly) that we must
count hard drive space in binary. So why do you write 465GB - that is not a
binary number!!

You didn't answer my question about dice - they have 6 states, so do you
have to count a quantity of dice in base 6?