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Thread ID: 72165	2006-09-02 03:58:00	XP hidden on drive?	Fishy (10540)	Press F1

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
482115	2006-09-02 03:58:00	I have heard before that people have bought a computer from a shop and didn't get the XP disks when they bought because there is a hidden bit on the HD where XP is. I didn't get any windows disks when my grandad bought this computer for me. The HD says it has a total of 37.2GB of space. But i googled maxtor 6l040l2, which is the brand and model number of it, and it says it has 40GB of space... That leads me to believe I have a hidden part with xp on it. It makes sense to me that 2.8GB is hidden and contains XP. I have googled it and haven't found anything on the topic, maybe because I don't really know what to search. So can someone help me on how to find out if I am right or some space on the HD has mysteriously vanished.	Fishy (10540)
482116	2006-09-02 04:24:00	The HD says it has a total of 37.2GB of space. But i googled maxtor 6l040l2, which is the brand and model number of it, and it says it has 40GB of space... That leads me to believe I have a hidden part with xp on it. It makes sense to me that 2.8GB is hidden and contains XP. Nope, you won't have any hidden partitions on there. Windows uses the 2.8GB for system files or FAT or something... I forget what. My 80GB HDDs are reported as having 74.53GB free space so there's quite a bit of space gone there.	FoxyMX (5)
482117	2006-09-02 04:30:00	Hi Fishy. Try the following to see if there is a hidden partition (I am not sure about the validity of this method): Go to Start > Control Panel > Performance and Maintenance > Administrative Tools > Computer Management. Next, double click Storage in the new window. After that, double click on Disk Management(Local) to see if there is a hidden parittion there. Cheers :)	Renmoo (66)
482118	2006-09-02 04:37:00	Hi Fishy. Try the following to see if there is a hidden partition (I am not sure about the validity of this method): Go to Start > Control Panel > Performance and Maintenance > Administrative Tools > Computer Management. Next, double click Storage in the new window. After that, double click on Disk Management(Local) to see if there is a hidden parittion there. Cheers :) Nope, no hidden anything. FoxyMX must be right. Nope, you won't have any hidden partitions on there. Windows uses the 2.8GB for system files or FAT or something... I forget what. My 80GB HDDs are reported as having 74.53GB free space so there's quite a bit of space gone there. Ok. I had just remembered reading somewhere that had happened. Maybe I was wrong. Anyway thanks for the help :thumbs:	Fishy (10540)
482119	2006-09-02 04:54:00	You're welcome. :)	FoxyMX (5)
482120	2006-09-02 05:40:00	Ahem... *breaks out the technical hat :p* What the cunning hard drive manufacturers do is manufacture hard drives where 1Gb is equal to 1000Mb, 1Mb is equal to 1000kb and 1Kb is equal to 1000b, in reality, this is not true... what it really is 1Gb is equal to 1024Mb, 1Mb is equal to 1024Kb and 1Kb is equal to 1024b. They state the higher number so that it sounds like more, this is the raw unformatted capacity, what we see is the not so raw formatted capacity, I have a 320Gb HDD here and it reports 297Gb total... go figure :rolleyes:	The_End_Of_Reality (334)
482121	2006-09-02 06:07:00	I have heard before that people have bought a computer from a shop and didn't get the XP disks when they bought because there is a hidden bit on the HD where XP is. You are referring to the likes of Compaq, Dell etc that may have a separate (usually not immediately obvious) partition with the REcovery Image on it. This is not XP exactly, its an image of the system as set up by them with an install of XP, drivers and masses of unnecessary rubbish - the use being if Windows gets trashed you can restore the PC back to its original state. Works fine unless Windows is trashed because the hard drive died....	pctek (84)
482122	2006-09-02 08:43:00	I agree with TEOR.	developer (4447)
482123	2006-09-02 10:33:00	What TEOR should have said was that the cunnning drive manufacturers know that Gigabyte can be used correctly as a decimal quantity meaning 1000 Megabytes and the computer manufacturers should be referring to Gibibytes if they mean the binary 1024 Mebibytes. I believe that recently they've given up being clever and label the drives with both decimal and binary capacities	PaulD (232)
482124	2006-09-02 11:27:00	You are referring to the likes of Compaq, Dell etc that may have a separate (usually not immediately obvious) partition with the REcovery Image on it . This is not XP exactly, its an image of the system as set up by them with an install of XP, drivers and masses of unnecessary rubbish - the use being if Windows gets trashed you can restore the PC back to its original state . That's how our Asus laptop came . But I deleted the partition as it's not necessary if you've got the recovery disk .	Greg (193)
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