PCTech Forums

Hi, my hard drive is 200 gigs and it only registers as 189 gigs. I was wondering if this is where files are stored such as extra data that can be recovered.
basically I have 2 questions.
1. Can this data be secure erased? I just formatted and I don't want anything to be recovered
2. Is there any way to make my hard drive a full 200 gigs.
thanx in advance
-Joe

What you are seeing is the differance between Binary and Decimal Capacities
Without going into the full explaination the 189 gigs you are seeing is right.

Drive Size in GB Approximate Total Bytes Decimal Capacity
(bytes/1,000,000,000)
Approximate Binary Capacity for a GB is (bytes/1,073,724,841)
Manufactures use the Binary Capacity to calculate the capacity
Windows and the BIOS use the Decimal Capacity

There are a number of erase programs that will do the job for you, like