Is this false advertising: Sony laptop 100 GB HDD but only 85 GB on checking?

[conso]

I purchased a Sony laptop at a sony center shop on Saturday Jan 6th. Its a "VGN-N11S/W" which is advertised as having 100 GB HDD, however when I got home and checked the properties of the laptop it has a C: and D: drive , the total size of these 2 disks is 85GB. So where is the 100GB HDD which I paid for.
Surely this is false advertising ?

 

[quinno]

Re: Is this false advertising

Is 100GB the unformatted size? Had a similar experience when I bought a 250GB internal hard drive - formatted to 230 GB, from memory....

 

[Satanta]

Re: Is this false advertising

A common marketing ploy by hard drive manufacturers is to calculate the size of a hard disk by using the decimal 10 system of 1000 bytes = one kilobyte, instead of the binary system where 1024 bytes = one kilobyte (your PC only knows binary). This rounding off practice means you end up with a hard drive with a capacity less than what is indicated on the label. For example, a true 80 GB hard disk can hold 85,899,345,920 bytes, but by using the base 10 formula, 80 GB comes out to only 80,000,000,000 bytes Do the simple subtraction, that's 5,899,345,920 bytes less than the true value. Now calculate what 5,899,345,920 bytes converts to by entering 5899345920 in the Byte box above. You will find that it translates to a loss of 5.49419 GIGABYTES!

[broken link removed]​

 

[ClubMan]

Re: Is this false advertising

Also - part of the 100GB (a few GB) is probably taken up by a special partition containing the Windows and applications reinstallation image. You can probably burn these to CD/DVD (Sony normally provide a utility to do this) and then recover the partition for your own use possible as part of a full reinstallation. Check the [broken link removed] for more on this. Sony, Dell and many other computer manufacturers do this these days - i.e. don't ship Windows OEM reinstallation CDs/DVDs and use a special partition instead. It's a good cost cutting exercise for them.

 

[pat127]

Re: Is this false advertising

Sony, Dell and many other computer manufacturers do this these days - i.e. don't ship Windows OEM reinstallation CDs/DVDs and use a special partition instead. It's a good cost cutting exercise for them.

As a matter of interest Clubman, how do you access the partition if you need to re-install?

Thanks

 

[ClubMan]

Re: Is this false advertising

Did you read the link? You can burn CDs/DVDs and then do away with the partition. Or I think you can use Sony's utility to tell the laptop to boot next time from the recovery partition in order to do a recovery install or full reinstall. I normally burn those images to CD/DVD (two copies just in case!) and then reinstall the full machine and recover the space in the process.

 

[jmayo]

All major manufacturers are now putting the OS and application install files on a hidden or semi hidden partition on the hard disk.
This is a scheme being pushed by Microsoft to prevent OS cds being used which are easier to copy etc.
It is advisable that you make what are sometimes called the "restore CDs/DVDs" when you first get your laptop. These can then be used to resurrect your system to it's out of the box state, if the OS and application become corrupted.
E.g on boot up HP machines ask if you want to do system restore.

Note: some manufacturers state you can only make these CDs once and they try and prevent you running the create CDs/DVDs more than once.
Note: you can restore your laptop from the hidden partition if it still exists on the hard drive.

Problems:
If the hard drive is corrupted and you have not made the restore/rescue CDs/DVDs then tough, you have not install disks.
When you do restore the system it puts back all the out of the box factory install clutter that originally came with machine.

You can see these hidden Partitions and remove them by using something wlike Partition Magic.

 

[pat127]

Re: Is this false advertising

Did you read the link? You can burn CDs/DVDs and then do away with the partition. Or I think you can use Sony's utility to tell the laptop to boot next time from the recovery partition in order to do a recovery install or full reinstall. I normally burn those images to CD/DVD (two copies just in case!) and then reinstall the full machine and recover the space in the process.

As I read the link it seemed to refer only to the use of the CD/DVD recovery method. The Dell laptop I bought last year came without CDs and I cannot find any reference to re-installation in Help - hence my question.

As you were....I've just discovered a reference to the 'Recovery Console' which refers specifically to the use of an installation CD. Sounds like I should have received one. Apologies.