Terry's Computer Tips - Newsletter
November 28, 2005

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Volume 1, Number 24 -- Monday, November 28, 2005
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

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6.  Hard Drive Space Discrepancies

I think we're all familiar with the hard drive marketer's definition of GB (gigabyte). Even though the computer world is built on powers of 2, and the closest to 1000 is 1024, the hard drive manufacturers decided they could advertise bigger drives if they use 1,000 as 1KB; 1,000,000 as 1MB; and 1,000,000,000 as 1GB.

When the size is small, there's not much difference. When you are talking 100 GB, the 100,000,000,000 byte drive is technically only 93.13 GB.

One more piece of background: over the years, IDE-based hard drives have faced motherboards that could not recognize all their space. THe first breakpoint was ad 8.4 GB. The next maximum was at 32 GB. Then, the original Windows XP would only recognize up to 132 GB. These were usually solved by software drivers from the motherboard or hard drive manufacturers. The Windows XP limitation was lifted by Service Pack 1.

You can further combine that with the calculations that Windows itself makes. Sometimes, Windows refers to the 1,000-based KB, MB and GB. Other times, it uses the 1,024-based KB, MB and GB.

Welcome to the confusion. The Windows XP "Help and Support Center" (which you get via most Microsoft Help menus) defines gigabyte as "gigabyte (GB) 1,024 megabytes, though often interpreted as approximately one billion bytes. Interestingly, they don't bother to define megabytes or kilobytes. Usually the Help and Support Center is much more helpful than this.

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7.  The Mystery of the Missing Hard Drive Space

Ralph Campbell wrote this week to ask:

I just noticed that my 120gb external drive, which I have partitioned into two drives does not seem to contain all the space it's supposed to.
G: drive has a total of 78 gb available ( Used and free)
H: drive, contains a total of 21 gb available (used and free).

The difference is 21 gb which is a whopping amount of space to be missing.

I could understand a few megabytes for allocation tables or what-not, but 20 GIGA-bytes? That's more that my D; drive contains!

Where'd the balance go?

I responded to Ralph that he seemed to have a problem that I have had.

I bought a "put it together yourself" external case a couple years ago on a super sale. I put a 40GB in it and was perfectly happy.

Earlier this year, I got a 160 to put in it (someone had them for $40 after rebates). Windows XP would only recognize 120GB in the external case. When I direct-connected the drive, XP saw the whole thing. This appears to be an issue with the USB2/IDE interface in my external drive case, as others report being able to use large drives in current external cases successfully, without special drivers.

The mystery is why Ralph's drive tops at 100GB and not 120GB or 132GB.

I told him to go to Start, Control Panel, Performance & Maintenance, Administrative Tools, Computer Management, Storage, Disk Management (Local) and to see what it shows.

Did he actually create partitions for the whole visible drive? Since he showed 2 partitions, he might have also left some enpty space.

Ralph wrote back to say:

Bingo, once again Terry.
Thanks for getting me there. It shows that I have almost 50 gb unallocated. The PC "sees" less than the 160, but more than the 120 ( 149), which is still a vast discrepancy from the advertized size.

But this is, as you experienced, an Seagate internal drive loaded into an external case. I do not recall paying attention to the total value when I installed it; it was my first experience at doing that, and did it solo!
So, now the question becomes, is there a way to add the unallocated space to one of the other partitions without reformatting that partition?
No?
Then what's the procedure for reformatting and adding?
What about bringing the unallocated space on line?
Thanks,
Ralph Campbell

I responded: Go to the same display as before. You should be able to do something like right-click in the unused space - in either the volumes listing at the top or the graphical display at the bottom. The popup context menu will give you the option to create a new partition.

Ralph wrote back to say:

Terry;
New drive space successfully formatted, and available. I didn't even try to combine it with another drive, although I think there may have been a provision for this. The 50 is large enough.
Thanks, again
Ralph

If we consider the 1024- vs 1000-based counting systems, did Ralph get all his hard drive space?

The hard drive manufacturers use 1,000,000,000 bytes as one gigabyte. Using 1024*1024*1024 as one gigabyte (the way the most of the computer industry does), the corresponding 1024-based measurement for Ralph's 160 GB hard drive is 149.01 GB. So, Ralph is not missing any hard drive space.

The manufacturers now declare their definition in their advertising and on the boxes, so the fine print says he's "ok."

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8.   Shareware/Freeware Pick of the Week

Program:   Notepad++
Publisher:  __ http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net
Category:  Text Editor / Programmer's Editor
License:  GNU General Public License (GPL)

I had been looking for a program like Notepad++, and now I've found it. My normal editor for writing the newsletter and web pages is EditPad Pro.

The big advantage to EditPad Pro over most text editors is that it recognizes a number of different computer languages and automatically color-codes the text as it is typed.

For example, HTML tags all use the *lt; and > symbols. When I type the < and if the file has an .htm, .html, or .html extension, EditPad Pro displays the < and the following text in red until the tag closes with a > character. Similarly, values in quotes are shown in blue.

This open-source, freeware text editor is designed to support a number of source code languages in addition to being a simple text editor. Notepad++ runs on Windows 95, 98, NT, 2000 and XP (and, presumably, Windows Me and Windows 2003 Server).

Some of the feature of Notepad++ are:

• Supported languages : C, C++, Java, C#, XML, HTML, PHP, Javascript, RC resource file, makefile, ASCII art file (extension .nfo , screenshot1, screenshot2), doxygen, ini file, batch file, ASP, VB/VBS source files, SQL, Objective-C, CSS, Pascal, Perl, Python, Lua, TCL, Assembler, Ruby, Lisp, Scheme, Properties, Diff, Smalltalk, Postscript and VHDL.
• Syntax Highlighting and Syntax Folding
• User Defined Syntax Highlighting
• Auto-completion
• Multi-Document
• Multi-View
• Regular Expression Search/Replace supported
• Full Drag ‘N' Drop supported
• Dynamic position of Views
• File Status Auto-detection
• Zoom in and zoom out
• Multi-Language environment supported
• Bookmark
• Brace and Indent guideline Highlighting
• Macro recording and playback
• Oh, yeah. It works as a plain, non-programming text editor, too.

Notepad++ provides all the functionality for which I was looking. This is great, since I now can use Notepad++ on my desktop computer. I can get color-coded syntax checking with Notepad++ for free, without buying another license for EditPad Pro (my license is on my Dell notebook).

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9.  Recommend my Terry's Computer Tips Newsletter to Your Friends

If you like my  Terry's Computer Tips newsletter, you can help me increase the number of subscribers to my free newsletter.  Recommend it to a friend.

Feel free to forward your copy of the newsletter to a friend or friends that you think would be interested, including all copyright notices and any advertising.

Be sure to mention that the Just For Subscribers articles that are available only in the email version and the Special Edition Newsletters, too.

The current issue and the newletter archives are available online at http://www.terryscomputertips.com/archives/, and, of course, via a link from the navigation bar on each Terry's Computer Tips web page.

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10.  Just for Fun!

This little Macromedia Flash show on a web site should get you into the holiday spirit!

Turn on your speakers, turn off the Volume Mute, and check out Wizards of Winter for a thrill.

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11.  Send me some email!

I always have time to read emails from you -- the readers of Terry's Computer Tips.  I can not promise a personalized response, but I reply to many of the questions, tips, comments and feedback emails.  I also may use your email in my newsletter!

Send me your comments, send me your tips, send me your questions, and send me your feedback!

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Back to Part 1   Part 2

Volume 1, Number 24 -- Monday, November 28, 2005
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Copyright © 2005 Terry A. Stockdale.  All rights reserved.