Windows 98SE not recognizing 80GB

[Markoman01027]

My BIOS detects my HD as 80GB, but when I go into drive properties in WIN 98SE, it is like 76.5GB. This comes from a fresh install and fresh active partition. The space does not get taken out of all of the space that Windows 98SE installation used up.

I believe the same thing happened with WIN XP PRO. Any ideas what this could be?

win98se
256mb of ddr ram
80GB IBM hd
-Matt

[reboot]

It's the way the manufacturer labels the drive.
If you figure 76,500kbytes, at 1024 bytes per K, then you have an 80 gig drive.
I have two 30 gig drives in my kids computer, made by different mfg's.
One is 28.62 GB, the other is 27.95 GB...go figure...

[needhelp]

As reboot says it all depends on how the manufacturer calculate their hard disks, some manufacturers count 1000 as 1000 but in computer terms of course 1000 is really 1024 so if we have a drive with true 8 Gbytes capacity and the manufacturer calculates 1000 as a computer thousand then of course the drive is going to appear larger than 8 Gbytes than it really is if we divide the number by 1000 instead of the true 1024. Hope this makes sense. Also for some reason, Windows has a mind of its own when it comes to recognising the capacity of hard drives. Its not unusual to lose a few Mbytes to Windows calculations. I dont know why that is.