Hard drive problems - can anyone help?

[bobc292001]

I've just bought a new 185GB hard drive. Fixed it into my PC and fired it up. Everything seemed to be ok ... the PC (running XP) detected it and then asked if I wanted to format, which I did. Formatted as NTSF and all seemed ok.
However ... when I check the properties for the disk it reports that it's capacity is 185,206,432 bytes (172GB). Is this correct???

Second problem .... I have PartitionMagic v8.0 and when I check the new disk with this utility it won't allow me to do anything to it. It can see the disk but it reports the partition as '176,700.2mb BAD'.
Otherwise the disk appears to work fine ... I can save docs to it and transfer from other disks etc.
I've tried to reformat using both PartitionMagic and XP's own format command and both report that the disc cannot be formatted.

Can anyone offer any help??????

Many thanks.

[BJ_M]

when I check the properties for the disk it reports that it's capacity is 185,206,432 bytes (172GB). Is this correct???

yes

second problem solution -> dont use partition magic on that drive ..

[EddyH]

modern discs, and those over 120gb especially, are just a total pain in the rear. reliability and compatibility problems all the way.

yep, the 185gb statement (such as on my shiny, shiny shiny IBM, and yours ) refers to 185 giga-with-a-small-g bytes, not the usual big-G. That is 185x10^9, rather than 185x2^30.

1 kilo byte = 1 thousand = 1000
1 Kilobyte = "1 thousand and a bit" = 1024

then as mega byte / Megabyte = kilo byte * kilo byte / Kilobyte * Kilobyte, and giga/Giga = kb*kb*kb / Kb*Kb*Kb, the problem grows.

Funnily enough, it's almost bang on a linearly increasing error, just one of those odd facets of maths. It grows by 2.4% each time, which is just a little over whatever magic number that increases both by the same factor and the same actual amount. It's just as good to say 2.5% each time for matters of simplicity.

So on that first conversion from manufacturer quoted 1000's of bytes to real-world 1024's (computers just count that way, ok ), you lose 2.5% of the capacity you expected. Like instead of 65.5kb, you really get 64... (65536). Then with megabytes, it's nearly a full 5%.... your supposed 1.44mb floppy only really holds 1.385Mb.
By the time we get to our current Gigabyte level it's up to 7.5% and the numbers start to look quite different. So the 185.2gb drive comes out closer to 175Gb. Mine's currently in two partitions, one of 100Gb, and the other of 72.5Gb, totally filled, the other few hundred megabytes being lost to partitioning and file system, etc (the FAT files nowadays, even as FAT32 with huge sectors, would probably totally fill the old 540mb disc I started out on if I tried to back up to it, and ask for a new disc to be inserted..)

The next step is terabyte discs - where it's a mere shave away (0.05% or something) from losing a full TEN PERCENT between the sneaky gigabyte and "real" Gigabyte (or Gibibyte if you want to be a loser - that title should be given to the small measurement in my own opinion, as it's not a 'real' measure of capacity in any case).

So, you'd buy a 2.2Tb disc, and it would only really be 2.0Tb... that's a good 200Gb gone missing there. Someone in the industry needs a wakeup slap.

When I saw the IBM disc, I thought, excellent, that's the same capacity as the other 180 discs, they've finally dropped the dumb system of trying to measure something inherently binary with large decimal notation... but no... it's just 5 gigs bigger. Not that i'm complaining about that



As for partitioning and testing, I don't know if you're after NTFS or anything, but it should have come with an 'install' disc you can use (just try to avoid it installing all that overlay crap if possible). If not, just get the approximate %s you want, then use DOS FDISK (on a different, but compatible non-XP machine if necessary). It won't show the right sizes, but so long as you give it percents instead of real mb numbers, it'll work OK.

[bobc292001]

Thanks for that.
Ok .. I get that I've been mislead by advertising. I thought that a drive advertised as 185GB would in fact be 185GB. It was bought from ebuyer (UK) and I can't see anywhere on the relevant page that actual capacity is 176GB.
I've uninstalled PartitionMagic and I still cannot reformat the drive from within Windows (it says Windows cannot format this drive. Quit any disc utilities or other programs that maybe using this drive and make sure that no windows are displaying it's contents).

I'm sure that nothing is using the drive in the background so I assume that Partitionmagic has done 'something' to this drive.
Even though the drive is working, I can't help trying to sort this out (!)

Should I leave well alone for fear of damaging the drive further?
The drive didn't come with an install disc, so would an XP boot disc and the FDISK and FORMAT commands get me back to stage one???

Many thanks again to anyone that can offer any help.

[gmatov]

BobC,
Have you actually put anything on this drive that you can move to somewhere else?
I assume it's not your new C drive.
I am not familiar with XP, but if you have a boot disk, use it to boot into whatever passes for DOS and do an fdisk/format from there.
EddyH says that the numbers will not be realistic, so use percentages. In XP, that may be true, then again it may not be. I have had the same problem with over 100 gig drives in 98. A 120, actually something like 117, shows as 17 gig. This caused a little flutter, because I had to go to MS to get the Large Drive version of fdisk to go over 64 gig, and to see that it did not recognize the full 120. I finally said the hell with it, I can always do it over, made a 10 gig, a second 10 gig, and had 97 gig to go after that. Seems fdisk couldn't, at that time, display 6 digits. I have to assume that MS has incorporated the new fdisk in newer OSs; they made it available for 98,after the fact, so why not.
You often get the error "Windows cannot format this disk...etc"" from within Windows. Fdisk always works. You are at the basic level.
I do not reccomend the install tools that come with a new drive. All of them use nonstandard parameters, and will screw up.
He's right on the millions instead of megs. It makes it look better on the box. Really, though, 185 gig, or 176 gig, it's a lot of room. Not to say that if you stay with video, you are never gonna need more. I've got about 700 gig installed, and it is filling up. I hate to delete the vobs; I'd have to hunt up the DVD and start all over. Easier to work from files on the drive.
Good luck on the re-format.
BTW, you will not damage the drive by doing these things to it.

[bbb]

HDs >120 MB do not read well in Windows XP. You have to run the HD setup disk that should have come with your drive. You should also be able to download it at the manufacturers website if you didn't receive one.

The HD setup disk is NOT optional for HDs >120 MB.

Once that is installed, you can fdisk and partition your drive and all should work well.

[vitualis]

"Advertising" sizes use what I call the weasel megabytes and gigabyte (i.e., one milion bytes and one billion bytes).

The real megabyte is 2^20 bytes and the real gigabyte is 2^30 bytes.

Of course, "mega" and "giga" do actually mean million and billion so you could argue that the advertisers are actually right and whoever decided to make Kb/Mb/Gb based on the power of two retarded...

By the way, EddyH, the lower case and upper case letters don't make any difference between weasel and real Kb/Mb/Gb... Both are accepted but if you follow the SI convention, they should all be upper case (otherwise mb should actually be milli-byte).

Regards.

[gmatov]

bbb,
The HDD setup disk is not optional for XP for drives over 120 gig?
Seems funny that 98 fdisk will work with a 100+ and XP will not, but I will defer to your expertise.
Unless absolutely necessary, meaning an antique board that will not detect a new drive at all, locking up, I still would do my damnedest to NOT use the drive install disk from the mfg. Parameters,again.

[Dasio]

bob
What is the chip set on your mobo? If is the Intel, there is new speed driver on Intel website witch supports drives >120 gig. I just installed 185 gig WD with no problems and works fine on WinXp
Did Partition Magic displayed any error with number, (error #XXX) or just said is bad? You can check this error number on their website and will tell you exactly what the problem is.
Or just maybe the drive is bad?