Dennis Myers <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: On Sunday 24 December 2006 16:27, christophe.rhein wrote: > Hello and Merry Christmas to all! > I got an external 320 GB USB HD. > It is recognized as removable drive but I get only 298 GB out of 320 GB! > What happened to the rest? > How shall I format the disk so I can read and write this HD under XP and > linux? > Is it possible to partition this HD so I can backup my home partition > and also store multimedia files on a second partition? > Thank you It is the old "how is the data capacity counted on a hard drive? Let me count the ways. No can't count that high. So anyhow, your hard drive is recognized properly by linux, it is just that the bits are counted properly by linux OS's and to their own advantage by the Manufacturers. Like gas mileage figures on the new car sticker. Linux uses 1028bytes to a kbit and the manufacturers use 1000 so they get 320 and linux gets 298. I may be off on my numbers there but you get the idea. There is also some space on the drive for overhead that linux doesn't count if i recall. Somebody who really knows something about this oughta jump in here. HTH
---cjs reply--- ok your right with your numbers about the sector counting and so on, and there is some portion of the drive that is reserved for linux swap-space if the initial hdd is full at the time. tip: Like in the linux live cds, if you run out of ram and swap space, linux will search for another linux partition and then use what ever swap-space is available on that partition for the linux swap-file. And if linux cant write a swap file, then the computer crashes or slows down to a near-stop. ----end of reply---- -- Dennis M. linux user #180842 ____________________________________________________ Want to buy your Pack or Services from Mandriva? Go to http://store.mandriva.com Join the Club : http://www.mandrivaclub.com ____________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ____________________________________________________ Want to buy your Pack or Services from Mandriva? Go to http://store.mandriva.com Join the Club : http://www.mandrivaclub.com ____________________________________________________
