Hard drive Size

[advoss_1999]

I am working on configuring my computer for multiple OSes, however I have somewhat of a problem.

I’m trying to plan out how I will size my partitions, unfortunately I can’t seem to figure out how much room I have to work with.

Since the drive is already partitioned I can't right-click it and see what the size of it is there, however the values I have so far are:

120 Gigabyte, What the box of the hard drive’s box says it to be

117240 MB, equal to 117.24 Gigabyte or 109.1883 Gibibyte (Given MB refers to Megabyte and not Mebibyte), What the
Device Manager in Windows XP says the capacity is when I go to properties on the hard drive

117240 MB, equal to 117.24 Gigabyte or 109.1883 Gibibyte (Given MB refers to Megabyte and not Mebibyte), the value I get when I add the size of my primary partition and the extended (light blue) on PartitionMagic

117239 MB, equal to 117.239 Gigabyte or 109.1873 Gibibyte (Again assuming MB stands for Megabyte), What PartitionMagic says the size of the drive is

117239.5 MB, you do the math, the resulting value of adding the size my primary partition and the sizes of my extended partitions in Partition Magic

If anyone here knows of a program that can tell me the exact size of my hard drive, preferably in bytes (that will be least confusing), it would be much appreciated and if not:
Do you know anywhere else to check, or which value I should trust?

NOTE: I had though 1 kilobyte=1024 bytes however that seems to have changed or something, check these three sites, or do your own research
(use Google to translate this page from German, it works fine then)

[Cactus]

Put a Win98 boot disk in floppy and boot to prompt...
At "A"Prompt type FDISK hit ENTER
Choose "Y" for yes hit enter
Now choose 4---- Display partition information

This will tell you the size of each Partition.
You can safely EXIT without saving changes.
This should give you the info you need.

Cactus

[advoss_1999]

bit o' a problem w/ that, what it gave me came out as 50.49219 gibibyte, which cant be right

*Edit just double-checked that and got the same, also i tried booting to the Microsoft Windows Recovery Console becaue if memory serves i can use Fdisk from that too, but it said "Disk Read Error [line break] Press Ctrl+Alt+Delete to restart", I dont make that out to be a good thing, will reinstalling the console fix that?

Also FDISK didn't mention anything about about my second hard drive

[Cactus]

So you ran FDISK and in the View Partitions it only shows one drive at 50GB?


Cactus

[Cactus]

Thats really strange that FDISK only shows the 50GB drive.

To start the computer and use the Recovery Console

From the Setup CD-ROM

Insert the Setup compact disc (CD) and restart the computer. If prompted, select any options required to boot from the CD.
When the text-based part of Setup begins, follow the prompts; choose the repair or recover option by pressing R. If you have a dual-boot or multiple-boot system, choose the installation that you need to access from the Recovery Console. When prompted, type the Administrator password. At the system prompt, type Recovery Console commands; type help for a list of commands, or help commandname for help on a specific command.

To exit the Recovery Console and restart the computer, type exit.

If you have already installed the Recovery Console

During Startup, select Recovery Console from the startup options menu. If you have a dual-boot or multiple-boot system, choose the installation that you need to access from the Recovery Console. When prompted, type the Administrator password. At the system prompt, type Recovery Console commands; type help for a list of commands, or help commandname for help on a specific command. To exit the Recovery Console and restart the computer, type exit.

Important Note: Because the Recovery Console is quite powerful, it is recommended for use only by advanced users or administrators.


Cactus

[advoss_1999]

It doesnt "only show the 50GB drive" i have no 50 GB drive the "box size" for my two hdd are: /dev/hda=120 GB /dev/hdb=40GB

F disk shows one at 10001 Mbytes with an a besides it, which is my active and Primary partition

then is shows extended at 41703 Mbytes and prompts if i want to see more on hte extended, an dif i tell it yes it shows me the extended partitions, which sizes add up to 41703 Mbytes

It also says 1 Mbyte = 1048576 bytes

10001+41703=51704 Mbytes
51704 Mbytes * 1048576 = 54215573504 bytes
1 Gibibyte =1073741824 bytes
54215573504 bytes / 1073741824 = 50.4921875 Gibibyte
And the calculator i was using at the time rounded that up to 50.49219

I already have the Recovery Console insstalled but when i selecte it i get the error, I dont have multiboot yet, besides the console, I just have my Windows XP Pro

[Restek]

Why are you so concerned about the 'exact' size of your drive? Capacities always change once a drive ois formatted (hence the difference between the box-size of your drive & what other programs are saying). Obviously they also change depending on how you define a megabyte (1000KB or 1024KB).

If you are repartitioning for multiple OS's, just use partition magcic & do things visually.