Partitioning hd....???

[Pragadheesh]

hi frenz,
i recently bought a 250GB hd.. i already ave a 80 GB hd.. now i wish to use ma 250 GB hd as main hd(keeping it inside d cpu) and make d 80 GB as a portable one by doing an external casing so that it can be connected via usb..
now d 80GB hd is partitioned in 4 drives and 6GB is lost due to partitionin
i.e C: - 14.6GB
D: - 14.6GB
E: - 29.2GB
F: - 15.9GB
can i combine these 4 drives into a single drive?? which mould b better?
can i get this 6 GB back by any means?? help me frenz...

[DukeNukem]

FiRST OF ALL YOU'VE NOT LOT 6GB OF SPACE
74.3GB is the SPACE WHICHu CAN HAVE FROM YOUR 80GB HDD OR FROM ANY OTHER 80 GB HDD

EVEN IF u ComBinE aLl oF yOUr fOuR DrivES inTo OnE u'LL gEt onlY 74.3GB of SpaCe

[sakumar79]

Hard disk manufacturers count 1 GB=1000 MB and 1 MB=1000 Bytes, whereas Windows,etc. calculate using 1024 (2 to the power of 10). 80 GB as per HD specs = 80 * 10^6 / 1024^2 = 76.2939453125 GB as per OS specs... A few more space is used for partition table, etc. I think...

Arun

[tuxfan]

Keeping a very large partition is not advisable. A partition of 20GB each is just about fair.

Just do this.

1. Create a small text file with one character.
2. Right click on it and see the properties.
3. See the difference between size and size on disk.

If you keep a very large partition, this "size on disk" will be more. So even if the file is only 1 byte, it will occupy more space. (Read here on why this happens.)

But then you can't keep making paritions of 2 GB to save on this. So strike a right balance and make reasonabe number of partitions of reasonable size. As I said, parition of 20GB each in a 80GB drive is fair enough.

As for the lost 6GB, its not due to partitioning. sakumar79 has given the explanation.

There was a law-suit filed in US against Western Digital (HD manufacturer) for misleading public about the drive size Read about it at the following links:
Bits, Bytes and Lawsuit
Western Digital settles drive size lawsuit

[nikhil ramteke]

partion magic can help you,but just forget about getting 6 GB,it is not actually 80 GB hd,it is only 76.3,(1GB=1000mb),and again the space is utilised while the partioning.......so combination of drive is possible using partionin magic.........
__________
u cant have complete 80 GB of hd,it is only neat bout 76.3 GB(sicne it is counted as a GB=1000 mb),.so cnat get back 6 Gb,but u can merge ur partition using partion magic so go for that,.............