Reduced HD Capacity -- Why?

The solid-state hard drive on my year-old Thinkpad X300 failed unexpectedly.

A replacement SSD from Lenovo fixed the problem; but after reloading the
drive using the Lenovo recovery CDs and the full backup that I had made via
the ThinkVantage system, the capacity of the drive now shows 50 GB rather
than 65 GB of the original.

What happened to the other 15GB?

Belarc Advisor says the SSD capacity is 64 GB.

I tried loading Partition Magic 7.0 to examine the new SSD for partitions,
but it doesn't handle solid state drives.

TKM

Somewhere on teh intarwebs TKM wrote:
> The solid-state hard drive on my year-old Thinkpad X300 failed
> unexpectedly.
> A replacement SSD from Lenovo fixed the problem; but after reloading
> the drive using the Lenovo recovery CDs and the full backup that I
> had made via the ThinkVantage system, the capacity of the drive now
> shows 50 GB rather than 65 GB of the original.
>
> What happened to the other 15GB?
>
> Belarc Advisor says the SSD capacity is 64 GB.
>
> I tried loading Partition Magic 7.0 to examine the new SSD for
> partitions, but it doesn't handle solid state drives.
>
> TKM

Perhaps the "Lenovo recovery CDs" re-created the hidden partition and that's
what's robbed you of the extra space.

(Assuming Windows of one flavour or another.) Have you tried right-clicking
on '(My) Computer', selecting 'Manage', then 'Disk Management' in the left
pane and seeing if that shows you what's going on with your HDD?
--
Rgds,
Shaun.

"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a
monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also
into you." Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

On Oct 24, 4:02*pm, "~misfit~" <sore_n_ha...@nospamyahoo.com.au>
wrote:
> Somewhere on teh intarwebs TKM wrote:
>
> > The solid-state hard drive on my year-old Thinkpad X300 failed
> > unexpectedly.
> > A replacement SSD from Lenovo fixed the problem; but after reloading
> > the drive using the Lenovo recovery CDs and the full backup that I
> > had made via the ThinkVantage system, the capacity of the drive now
> > shows 50 GB rather than 65 GB of the original.
>
> > What happened to the other 15GB?
>
> > Belarc Advisor says the SSD capacity is 64 GB.
>
> > I tried loading Partition Magic 7.0 to examine the new SSD for
> > partitions, but it doesn't handle solid state drives.
>
> > TKM
>
> Perhaps the "Lenovo recovery CDs" re-created the hidden partition and that's
> what's robbed you of the extra space.
>
> (Assuming Windows of one flavour or another.) Have you tried right-clicking
> on '(My) Computer', selecting 'Manage', then 'Disk Management' in the left
> pane and seeing if that shows you what's going on with your HDD?
> --
> Rgds,
> Shaun.
>
> "He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a
> monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also
> into you." Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

Shaun, even with a hidden partition...wouldn't WinDoze still list the
(after formatted) size correctly?

"~misfit~" <> wrote in message
news:ia2dvb$s5h$...
> Somewhere on teh intarwebs TKM wrote:
>> The solid-state hard drive on my year-old Thinkpad X300 failed
>> unexpectedly.
>> A replacement SSD from Lenovo fixed the problem; but after reloading
>> the drive using the Lenovo recovery CDs and the full backup that I
>> had made via the ThinkVantage system, the capacity of the drive now
>> shows 50 GB rather than 65 GB of the original.
>>
>> What happened to the other 15GB?
>>
>> Belarc Advisor says the SSD capacity is 64 GB.
>>
>> I tried loading Partition Magic 7.0 to examine the new SSD for
>> partitions, but it doesn't handle solid state drives.
>>
>> TKM
>
> Perhaps the "Lenovo recovery CDs" re-created the hidden partition and
> that's what's robbed you of the extra space.
>
> (Assuming Windows of one flavour or another.) Have you tried
> right-clicking on '(My) Computer', selecting 'Manage', then 'Disk
> Management' in the left pane and seeing if that shows you what's going on
> with your HDD?
> --
> Rgds,
> Shaun.
>
> "He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a
> monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also
> into you." Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
Thank you, Shaun. That suggestion was helpful. I'm using Windows XP/SP3.
The recovery process did indeed create a hidden partition called
"Service001" with 9.8 GB; so I now can account for 59.6 GB of she supposed
64 GB reported by Belarc Advisor.

Any thoughts on how to get those lost GB back?

TKM

"TKM" <> wrote in message
news:ia456r$70p$...
>
> "~misfit~" <> wrote in message
> news:ia2dvb$s5h$...
>> Somewhere on teh intarwebs TKM wrote:
>>> The solid-state hard drive on my year-old Thinkpad X300 failed
>>> unexpectedly.
>>> A replacement SSD from Lenovo fixed the problem; but after reloading
>>> the drive using the Lenovo recovery CDs and the full backup that I
>>> had made via the ThinkVantage system, the capacity of the drive now
>>> shows 50 GB rather than 65 GB of the original.
>>>
>>> What happened to the other 15GB?
>>>
>>> Belarc Advisor says the SSD capacity is 64 GB.
>>>
>>> I tried loading Partition Magic 7.0 to examine the new SSD for
>>> partitions, but it doesn't handle solid state drives.
>>>
>>> TKM
>>
>> Perhaps the "Lenovo recovery CDs" re-created the hidden partition and
>> that's what's robbed you of the extra space.
>>
>> (Assuming Windows of one flavour or another.) Have you tried
>> right-clicking on '(My) Computer', selecting 'Manage', then 'Disk
>> Management' in the left pane and seeing if that shows you what's going on
>> with your HDD?
>> --
>> Rgds,
>> Shaun.
>>
>> "He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a
>> monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also
>> into you." Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
> Thank you, Shaun. That suggestion was helpful. I'm using Windows XP/SP3.
> The recovery process did indeed create a hidden partition called
> "Service001" with 9.8 GB; so I now can account for 59.6 GB of she supposed
> 64 GB reported by Belarc Advisor.
>
> Any thoughts on how to get those lost GB back?

It depends on how the space is calculated. Not all gigabytes are created
equal. There's the manufacturer's gigabyte, which is a billion bytes.
Then, there's the binary gigabyte, which is 1024³ bytes. You get fewer
gigabytes than the mfr. promised with a binary gigabyte, but that's how the
cookie crumbles. How does CMOS calculate it? Trust that figure. It's what
the computer will use to do its calculations. Hit F1 when prompted during
startup, and have a look at the drive parameters. HTH.

--
-- 73 DE Tom Rutherford, N8EUJ, Burton, MI
"She said it was either her or the ham radio. Over."

Somewhere on teh intarwebs Tom Rutherford wrote:
> "TKM" <> wrote in message
> news:ia456r$70p$...
>>
>> "~misfit~" <> wrote in message
>> news:ia2dvb$s5h$...
>>> Somewhere on teh intarwebs TKM wrote:
>>>> The solid-state hard drive on my year-old Thinkpad X300 failed
>>>> unexpectedly.
>>>> A replacement SSD from Lenovo fixed the problem; but after
>>>> reloading the drive using the Lenovo recovery CDs and the full
>>>> backup that I had made via the ThinkVantage system, the capacity
>>>> of the drive now shows 50 GB rather than 65 GB of the original.
>>>>
>>>> What happened to the other 15GB?
>>>>
>>>> Belarc Advisor says the SSD capacity is 64 GB.
>>>>
>>>> I tried loading Partition Magic 7.0 to examine the new SSD for
>>>> partitions, but it doesn't handle solid state drives.
>>>
>>> Perhaps the "Lenovo recovery CDs" re-created the hidden partition
>>> and that's what's robbed you of the extra space.
>>>
>>> (Assuming Windows of one flavour or another.) Have you tried
>>> right-clicking on '(My) Computer', selecting 'Manage', then 'Disk
>>> Management' in the left pane and seeing if that shows you what's
>>> going on with your HDD?
>>>
>>> "He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become
>>> a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes
>>> also into you." Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
>> Thank you, Shaun. That suggestion was helpful. I'm using Windows
>> XP/SP3. The recovery process did indeed create a hidden partition
>> called "Service001" with 9.8 GB; so I now can account for 59.6 GB of
>> she supposed 64 GB reported by Belarc Advisor.
>>
>> Any thoughts on how to get those lost GB back?
>
> It depends on how the space is calculated. Not all gigabytes are
> created equal. There's the manufacturer's gigabyte, which is a
> billion bytes. Then, there's the binary gigabyte, which is 1024³
> bytes. You get fewer gigabytes than the mfr. promised with a binary
> gigabyte, but that's how the cookie crumbles. How does CMOS
> calculate it? Trust that figure. It's what the computer will use to
> do its calculations. Hit F1 when prompted during startup, and have a
> look at the drive parameters. HTH.

Spot on Tom. I'd say that the drive is measured in billions of bytes rather
than 1024³ bytes. That would make a 64 "GB" HDD quite a bit less than 64
'real' GB.

For instance, the Seagate Momentus 7200.4 "320GB" HDD in this T60 only shows
up as 298.1GB in Windows.

Also, TKM, in 'Disk Management' were there any areas of the HDD listed as
'Unallocated'? (Actually other, 3rd party software often show those up
better.) Some install routines don't use all of the available space on a
HDD, due to the routine being written for various size drives but not being
a very complax routine.

One more thing, as XP doesn't support the 'trim' routine natively perhaps
the SSD is reserving some of it's space for use by the firmware for moving
out 'bad sectors'. I'll be honest, I don't know as much about SSDs as I'm
likely to need to know in the near future. However I *do* know that, in some
cases they reserve space for internal, firmware-only use.

At least you've found where most of it's gone, I wouldn't sweat the small
amount unaccounted for now. If you have the restore disks and you don't make
a habit of going into the pre-desktop OS (e.g. hitting "ThinkVantage" or
'Access IBM", whatever it's called on your machine) it should be safe to use
a third-party tool (I use and recommend Acronis Disk Director) to delete
that service partition and 'stretch' the C: partition to encompass the
entire drive available to you.

HTH,
--
Shaun.

"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a
monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also
into you." Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

Somewhere on teh intarwebs TKM wrote:
> "~misfit~" <> wrote in message
> news:ia2dvb$s5h$...
>> Somewhere on teh intarwebs TKM wrote:
>>> The solid-state hard drive on my year-old Thinkpad X300 failed
>>> unexpectedly.
>>> A replacement SSD from Lenovo fixed the problem; but after reloading
>>> the drive using the Lenovo recovery CDs and the full backup that I
>>> had made via the ThinkVantage system, the capacity of the drive now
>>> shows 50 GB rather than 65 GB of the original.
>>>
>>> What happened to the other 15GB?
>>>
>>> Belarc Advisor says the SSD capacity is 64 GB.
>>>
>>> I tried loading Partition Magic 7.0 to examine the new SSD for
>>> partitions, but it doesn't handle solid state drives.
>>
>> Perhaps the "Lenovo recovery CDs" re-created the hidden partition and
>> that's what's robbed you of the extra space.
>>
>> (Assuming Windows of one flavour or another.) Have you tried
>> right-clicking on '(My) Computer', selecting 'Manage', then 'Disk
>> Management' in the left pane and seeing if that shows you what's
>> going on with your HDD?
>>
> Thank you, Shaun. That suggestion was helpful. I'm using Windows
> XP/SP3. The recovery process did indeed create a hidden partition
> called "Service001" with 9.8 GB; so I now can account for 59.6 GB of
> she supposed 64 GB reported by Belarc Advisor.
>
> Any thoughts on how to get those lost GB back?

Hi TKM. See my reply to Tom.

Cheers,
--
Shaun.

"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a
monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also
into you." Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

On 25 Oct 2010 in comp.sys.laptops.thinkpad, ~misfit~ wrote:

> I'd say that the drive is measured in billions of bytes rather
> than 1024ü bytes.

Yes, that's industry standard practice.

> That would make a 64 "GB" HDD quite a bit less than 64 'real' GB.

64 x 1 000 000 000 / 1 073 741 824 = 59.6

--
Joe Makowiec
http://makowiec.org/
Email: http://makowiec.org/contact/?Joe
Usenet Improvement Project: http://twovoyagers.com/improve-usenet.org/

Somewhere on teh intarwebs Joe Makowiec wrote:
> On 25 Oct 2010 in comp.sys.laptops.thinkpad, ~misfit~ wrote:
>
>> I'd say that the drive is measured in billions of bytes rather
>> than 1024ü bytes.
>
> Yes, that's industry standard practice.
>
>> That would make a 64 "GB" HDD quite a bit less than 64 'real' GB.
>
> 64 x 1 000 000 000 / 1 073 741 824 = 59.6

Thanks Joe. That's exactly the number that TKM is seeing in Windows. All of
the 'lost' space has now been accounted for. Yay! <g>
--
Shaun.

"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a
monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also
into you." Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche