Hard Drive.

[Waqz]

My Vaio is supposed to have a 80gb hard drive. But when i go into my computer it shows th C drive with 37.2gb? The D drive with 29.3. Although im not sure why thre are 2 i think one is for recovering my laptop?? But they still do not add up to 80gb! Where is the rest!

[Resonate]

My Vaio is supposed to have a 80gb hard drive. But when i go into my computer it shows th C drive with 37.2gb? The D drive with 29.3. Although im not sure why thre are 2 i think one is for recovering my laptop?? But they still do not add up to 80gb! Where is the rest!

Your VAIO has an 80GB HDD However, with VAIO it is partioned into two seperate drives being C:\ & D:\ mounting to 80GB also WinXP has a different way of calculating cluster size so they total amount of drive space may appear less

WinXP uses the binary code,

ie 1KB = 1024 bytes
Therefore,

Manufactures 120 GB hard drive = 120,000,000,000 bytes

WinXp calculates, 120 GB hard drive = 111.76 GB

120GB manufactures size into WinXP binary calculating

120Gb = 120,000,000,000

/1024 = 117187500 kilobytes
/1024 = 114441 megabytes
/1024 = 111.76 Gigabytes

Hope this kind of answers your Q.

[Thalamus.]

My Vaio is supposed to have a 80gb hard drive. But when i go into my computer it shows th C drive with 37.2gb? The D drive with 29.3. Although im not sure why thre are 2 i think one is for recovering my laptop?? But they still do not add up to 80gb! Where is the rest!

The difference in hard drive size is due to the different way manufactures and Microsoft report the sizes..

Manufacturers use the SI scale for example 1KB = 1000 bytes

Microsoft, ie windows XP, use the binary, for example 1KB = 1024 bytes

Therefore manufactures 80 GB hard drive = 80,000,000,000 bytes.

Whereas MS 80 GB hard drive = 74.5 GB

example 80GB manufactures size converted to MS binary scale...

80Gb = 80,000,000,000

/1024 = 78125000 kilobytes
/1024 = 76294 megabytes
/1024 = 74.5 Gigabytes

Also you have a hidden recovery partition, which is probably 7.6 GB

[Waqz]

Therefore manufactures 80 GB hard drive = 80,000,000,000 bytes.

Whereas MS 80 GB hard drive = 74.5 GB

example 80GB manufactures size converted to MS binary scale...

80Gb = 80,000,000,000

/1024 = 78125000 kilobytes
/1024 = 76294 megabytes
/1024 = 74.5 Gigabytes

Also you have a hidden recovery partition, which is probably 7.6 GB

74.5gb? So I have a 37.2gb and 29.3gb which is a total of: 66.5gb. Plus the 7.6: 74.1. As you said it should be 74.5. Almost right. Do you store anything on the D drive? Whats the point of splitting it into 2? And if thats the recovery partion why is there another 7.6 hidden!? Thanks

[Resonate]

There are many plus points to partion your drive personally i store all "My Documents" on the D Drive as after a while that folder can weigh a serious amount, I also dircet & install program files to this directory so it does not clutter my C Drive this is good as only the short cuts & major files get placed in C. so if you have a Windows Crash only Data on C Drive will be lost.

You can also organise which programs to have were in C its usually

C:\Program Files\

On mine i set it like this



D:\Master Program Files\General Programs
\Games
\System BackUp & Restore
\Maintenance & Cleaning
D:\User Program Files\Personal Files\My Music
\My Pictures
\My Office Files
\The Kids Folder\There <profanity removed by moderator> goes Here

See above is good for me as i like to be organise & you can remember exactly were you place something too.

[skykit84]

The recovery partition is hidden for a good reason! So you or an external thing does not destroy it.

The recovery partition is your replacement "cds" lets put it. Anything goes wrong with yur laptop, you use the recovery partition to restore your computer.

Now lets say you had a virus that destroyed your windows installation. How would you restore it if you 1. had no CDs (which sony dont give you anyway!) and 2. your recovery partition was affected by the virus?

As its hidden, its hidden not only from accidental tamper such as you/the user deleting it, deleting some of it, formatted it but also hidden from ANYTHING that can affect it such as viruses/users/applications and so on.



Reason for splitting drives up is mainly organisation.
As with Resonate, its nice to split things up.

I always work on a case with my own pc's and laptops to have
c:\ operating system ONLY
d:\ software
e:\ games + photo/video editing appls
f:\ files/docs

Any of hte other letters (from g to k) are my various backup drives and so on.
I know, lots of letters but if i ever need something, I always know where it is

[Waqz]

o. So if i have to reset my laptop and i stored files on the D drive then i will not loose them? Thanks for help.....

[Resonate]

o. So if i have to reset my laptop and i stored files on the D drive then i will not loose them? Thanks for help.....

You don't have to recovery your laptop only if you are swapping your Program files your documents you can Swap by

START >

On the my documents left click & then properties select Move then choose your Directory ie D:\My documents or D:\**FOLDER**\My Documents

If you are planning program swap i don't recommend it as your registry will become screwed & programs will not work :smileytalk_to_the_hand:

[mgrasek100]

My Vaio is supposed to have a 80gb hard drive. But when i go into my computer it shows th C drive with 37.2gb? The D drive with 29.3. Although im not sure why thre are 2 i think one is for recovering my laptop?? But they still do not add up to 80gb! Where is the rest!

look in the partition manager under windows