Hardware Need help formatting new external hard drive!?

[Ghostyis40]

I just bought a new 2TB Toshiba external hard drive and wanted to know if there is a way or program that will let me completely wipe it clean? I did the usual format via PC but it says I only have 1.8GB I'd like the full 2TB if at all possible? Dose any one know how to do this? Thanks ahead of time

 

[Originality]

Tried disk management in Windows?

 

[Ghostyis40]

Is that going to give me my full 2TB on my external HDD? Gawd I hate when companies do this with HDD and SD cards and jump drives its retarded

 

[pyromaniac123]

http://knowledge.seagate.com/articles/en_US/FAQ/172191en

You should read this.

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

Is that going to give me my full 2TB on my external HDD? Gawd I hate when companies do this with HDD and SD cards and jump drives its retarded

They don't do anything, it's the way the storage is read via Windows and how HDD manufacturers market their HDDs. The manufacturers calculate bytes by the 1000's (decimal) whereas Windows uses binary (1024). This ends up with Windows displaying the size in binary, and not the intended decimal size instead.

Windows/other OS's should really display the size in it's decimal format, to prevent confusion, but alas they don't. Rather silly, but meh. IIRC Seagate has a FAQ on this somewhere on their website.

EDIT: Yeah, pyro posted the link above me.

 

[trumpet-205]

Is that going to give me my full 2TB on my external HDD? Gawd I hate when companies do this with HDD and SD cards and jump drives its retarded

Actually you have to blame Microsoft instead. If you put the drive under Linux it will show up as 2TB, but NOT on Windows.

This is because Windows uses binary multiple units to measure drive size. Microsoft should have use appropriate unit, GiB (Gigibyte) and TiB (Tebibyte). Instead Microsoft becomes lazy and just use TiB and TB interchangeably, even though they are NOT the same. I always wonder how Microsoft got away from it.

1 TiB = 1.099 TB, hence why 2 TB drive shows up as "1.8 TB" under Windows.

TB used in Windows is NOT the same as the one used in HDD manufacturers and other operating system.

 

[Originality]

I noticed my error in understanding. In the OP, he said he only got 1.8GB. He meant 1.8TB. And it seems I'm the only one who got caught by the mistake. Probably because I've encountered many drives that actually do end up showing such a discrepancy (2GB instead of 2TB operable capacity).

Anyway, something that hasn't mentioned is that part of the capacity of the HDD, when formatted, is taken up by the file tables. Manufacturers sometimes use this as their excuse as to why the advertised capacity is not the same as the formatted/operating capacity. Doesn't cause as much a discrepancy as the TB/TiB difference though.

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

Ha, I didn't even notice actually, I just skimmed through the first post

 

[tbgtbg]

Windows/other OS's should really display the size in it's decimal format, to prevent confusion, but alas they don't. Rather silly, but meh. IIRC Seagate has a FAQ on this somewhere on their website.

Other way around. Seagate/other HDD manufacturers should really advertise the size in the binary style, since that was the original standard for computer size prefixes until the drive makers started looking for ways to fuck with the numbers to make their drives look bigger than they actually are.

 

[Originality]

Googling 2.72TB HDD isn't quite as catchy as googling 3TB HDD. I don't know, maybe it's just me.
EDIT: And looking at it, after formatting, it's actually 3,000,457,228,228 bytes. It really is (over) 3TB after all!
EDIT2: And I just noticed, that very point was made in the Seagate link provided... I feel silly.

 

[trumpet-205]

Other way around. Seagate/other HDD manufacturers should really advertise the size in the binary style, since that was the original standard for computer size prefixes until the drive makers started looking for ways to fuck with the numbers to make their drives look bigger than they actually are.

Actually you are wrong about that. The very first data drive, IBM 350, was advertised in decimal multiple unit (3.75 megabyte). Drive have from the very beginning, use decimal multiple units.

Bottom line is, Windows is supposed to use TiB instead of TB when it uses binary multiple units. Like I said, for other OS such as Linux or BSD, they use decimal multiple unit.

 

[Ghostyis40]

They don't do anything, it's the way the storage is read via Windows and how HDD manufacturers market their HDDs. The manufacturers calculate bytes by the 1000's (decimal) whereas Windows uses binary (1024). This ends up with Windows displaying the size in binary, and not the intended decimal size instead.

Windows/other OS's should really display the size in it's decimal format, to prevent confusion, but alas they don't. Rather silly, but meh. IIRC Seagate has a FAQ on this somewhere on their website.

EDIT: Yeah, pyro posted the link above me.

So your basicly saying that even though my PC is saying I only have 1800GB I actually have 2TB? am I understanding you correctly

 

[Ghostyis40]

Is there any way to switch windows over to decimal format guys? cause I agree it is annoying that Microsoft went with the TiB or what ever its called, I mean I would much rather be able to just plug in my pen drives, sd cards and external hard drives and have them display exactly whats on them not this other crap windows is showing me and thank you guys its always fun coming here and as tech savy as I am always learning more thanks to you guys here on gbatemp

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

Is there any way to switch windows over to decimal format guys? cause I agree it is annoying that Microsoft went with the TiB or what ever its called, I mean I would much rather be able to just plug in my pen drives, sd cards and external hard drives and have them display exactly whats on them not this other crap windows is showing me and thank you guys its always fun coming here and as tech savy as I am always learning more thanks to you guys here on gbatemp

Nope, you'll just have to deal with it. It's not like it matters much anyways, it's not like you'll be staring at your HDD space all day anyways