External HD "medion" 160GB not fully viewable/usab

[Alexander59]

I installed a new external HD "Medion 160GB" using firewire connection.
Despite the fact that the manufacturer says that the HD provides 160 GB of space, I can observe in "my computer" and on other locations that the available space is ONLY 150 GB. Where is the other 10 GB gone to? Is it possible that this has someting to do with my Bios?
I'm using a Dell Dimension 8100 with Bios XP2.

Thank you very much,
Alex

[Denniss]

Completely normal to have less formatted space than unformatted as the OS/File System needs some space,too .

And the HDD manufacturers calculate their size different from the computer users .
1GB is 1000MB as the manufacturer calculate but at our computers 1GB is 1024MB

[Alexander59]

OK, thx for the answer. I can understand that the OS takes space, but I did not install any OS on this external drive. Lies the explanation then only in the fact that the manufacturers Gb is not equal to the computer's...???

[soupy]

That's what Denniss said, yes.

[Alexander59]

Thanks,
Bios flashed. No change..

[Ritchie]

I think what Denniss said explains why you only see 150GB on a 160GB disk.

As manufacturer calculates, 160,000 bytes / 1000 MB in a GB is 160 GB.

As we calculate disk sizes, 160,000 bytes / 1024 MB in a GB is 156.25GB

Probably partioning information, formatting information, the file allocation system and other factors reduce you down by a bit to the point where you see is 150GB.

For example, I have a WDC HDD that was sold as 120GB. Windows XP reports this to me as a 111GB CAPACITY disk. So you are doing well with 150GB out of 160GB. Also don't confuse available space (FREE space) with CAPACITY. I have 104GB FREE space because some files are taking up some of the disk's 111GB CAPACITY.



Also, if a BIOS upgrade allows you to detect larger disks, you may not see the available space in Windows automatically as the drive has probably been partitioned according to the sizes that the BIOS can see before the upgrade.

[Alexander59]

Thank you all !!!