Mystery of the missing gigabytes!

[LocKStocK]

Clearing up my second HDD today, I noticed that I'm missing about 7 gigabytes of space.
This is a 60gb HDD, its been partitioned and is now 55.5gb.
I have 3 files on my D:, 1 weighing in at 44.8gb, one at 3.06gb and another at 500mb. Thats about 48gb of data. Windows is saying i have 55mb
worth of space remaing.
What gives?

 

[Khayman]

*edit*
never mind, read the question wrong

 

[Xie]

Welcome to the world in which an OS, a hard drive maker, and the standards can all have a different idea of what a "GB" is.

 

[Taggert_LOA]

i think i read somewhere you lose space every time you format the drive.

 

[Khayman]

you don't lose more space every time, just the same space (but not really) because HD manufacturers measure 1Gb as 1000mb, Windows (and most other people) measures as 1024mb per GB

But the question is (i think) If its a 55.5GB drive (after format and partition and as reported by Windows) and all files on the drive = ~48GB then why does windows say there is only 55Mb left.

 

[xtweaker]

The more partitions you use and the bigger they are the more space you lose. It's because of the Master File Table. That takes space... The bigger the partition, the bigger the Master File Table has to be. And like the others said, some manufacturers tend to round up to the highest GB. It's not always 100% accurate to the last digit...

If you look at the screenshot of my drives, it doesn't actually add up to 120Gb on my system either... and it's a 120Gb SATA HDD. It's normal.

 

[lancer]

i think the question really should be, what kind of file is 44gb's?

 

[LordOfLA]

drive image?

 

[xtweaker]

He said

Clearing up my second HDD today, I noticed that I'm missing about 7 gigabytes of space.

... What do you guys mean by 44Gb file? He's only missing 7Gb... really looks like normal MFT usage to me... the ratio seems right don't you think?

 

[lancer]

1 weighing in at 44.8gb, that file, its too big to miss.

 

[xtweaker]

1 weighing in at 44.8gb, that file, its too big to miss.

D'uh, I must have cross-eyed there, I saw that as partitions he had... LOL. Me bad...

Hey wait a second...

Just thought of something...

If he had Windows System Restore enabled, which creates a hidden system folder (which you don't see unless you unhide protected system files), could that take that much space in addition to the MFT? I'm referring to the System Volume Information folder...