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Missing HD Space

P

ProxyOne

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Hello, this is my first first, and I've been having this problem for awhile now. My hard drive is showing a capacity of 186 GB when it's supposed to be 200 GB. Based on what's installed, it's currently at 164 GB. I've used Grand Perspective, WhatSize, Main Menu, and Disk Inventory X to try and help the issue, but nothing works.

If anyone has a suggestion that may help me out, I would appreciate it. I've seen that several people have had a similar problem, and so far none of the suggestions made worked.

P.S. Repair disk shows that there isn't any issues.
 
It has nothing to do with "What version of Mac OS X do you have"

In the world of Software and Hardware, the hard drive manufacturer calculates 200gb by using 1GB = 1000MB, but the software actually uses 1GB = 1024MB

Computers "think" best with base 2. 2^10 = 1024

The space is still present, it is just calculated differently.

This is why it appears that you "loose" space on an iPod. You by 32 GB iPod, yet it only shows 29GB of available storage...
 
I'm on the standard Leopard right now, by the way.

The thing is, the hard drive always used to show the max capacity of 200 GB, but now it's at 186. Going into both the finder and disk utility says the same thing.

Right now, I'm trying to upgrade to Snow Leopard but that's causing a problem in itself. My computer only started giving problems reading the disk once the hard drive issue came about, even if they aren't directly related.
 
ProxyOne said:
I'm on the standard Leopard right now, by the way.

The thing is, the hard drive always used to show the max capacity of 200 GB, but now it's at 186. Going into both the finder and disk utility says the same thing.
Click to expand...

If you're on Leopard (10.5), then Finder never showed the capacity of a 200GB drive as 200GB. That's simply not possible with 10.5.
 
You're right. I realized what I wrote was wrong. It was around 185 GB, which I assume that the 15 GB went to the Leopard installation. In the Disk Utility, the capacity was shown to be 200 GB, usually, but now it's at 186 GB. With Leopard installed, it's at 163 right now. Sorry for the confusion.
 
Any help?

I'll erased the drive with the 7-pass method and nothing seems to work. The 'About This Mac' section still shows the maximum capacity to be less than what it originally was.

Along with this, my computer fails to install Snow Leopard. The installation completes half through before the computer restarts and ejects the disk. If anyone has suggestions, I'd really appreciate it.
 
Again, that's how it was before Snow Leopard. I had a 200gb HD in my Macbook and it showed 186ish until I got SL on it, and then it reported 200GB. It's about how the computer calculates it, like that article states. This issue confused me at first too, I also thought it was the OS originally.

As for the Snow Leopard installation, look at the Apple Support articles online, and all I can say is if you find nothing make a genius bar appointment.
 
ProxyOne said:
I apologize for asking again. Thanks everyone. I'll try to figure out the issue with SL now.
Click to expand...

You don't have to apologize for asking a legitimate question.

To summarize:

You buy a hard drive that the manufacturer shows has a capacity of 200GB.
You install Leopard and Finder shows the capacity as around 186GB.
You install Snow Leopard and Finder shows the capacity as 200GB.
All 3 are referring to the same amount. Only Leopard uses a different method of measuring, but all 200GB of capacity is still there.

All numbers refer to the maximum capacity, regardless of what is stored on the drive.
 
Thanks. For some reason I always thought Leopard showed the capacity to be 200 GB. I've managed to install Snow Leopard, but I think my dvd drive is causing some problems. That, I can get checked out if anything. Otherwise, everything is fine.

Thanks again, everyone.
 
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