So, I got two WD My passport drives 320gb. I was wondering why there were so many on Ebay and why they were cheaper than the others. They come with a pre-installed WD SmartWare cd emulation software (and other crap) that turns the drive into a 297gb drive. Now, I couldn't even change the name of the drive until I dug into the properties a few layers. But the program remains. Add/remove program does not work. I went online and found a way to hide the new CD drive, but I want more then hiding. Does anyone know how to delete the program and folders itself so I can have that 20gb back?
I hate that, when I pay for a certain amount of space I want all of that space as well. If they need a gig or 2 for something, fine, but 20 is outrageous. I'm also interested in learning the solution to this because I own 2 WD passports as well.
Unlikely. The software itself shouldn't be a lot more than 150 MB or so - the HD itself isn't 320 GB. It's 320,000 MB (or probably even a couple levels lower, like, 320,000,000 KB - which in any case isn't 320 GB, since 1 GB = 1,024 MB and 1 MB = 1,024 KB and so on), i.e. it's advertised differently - that's the case for all HDs. If you really want to get rid of the program, just reformat the drive and it'll be gone. Personally, I'd use TrueCrypt to encrypt the entire drive - that'd get rid of the programs as well.
All drives seem to be like that. You never see the full advertised amount. Hitting properties on my 1TB C: drive, it says "Capacity: 988,607,934.464 bytes, or 920 GB.
The issue is: Formatted vs. Unformatted In order for any type of storage device to be functional, there must be some method for the computer to know which bits stored on it relate to the specific files. This is where formatting of a drive comes in. The types of drive formats can vary depending on the computer but some of the more common ones are FAT16, FAT32 and NTFS. In each of these formatting schemes, a portion of the storage space is allocated so that the data on the drive can be catalogued enabling the computer or other device to properly read and write the data to the drive. This means that when a drive is formatted, the functional storage space of the drive will be less than its unformatted capacity. The amount by which the space is reduced will vary depending upon the type of formatting used for the drive and also the amount and size of the various files on the system. Since it does vary, it is impossible for the manufacturers to quote the formatted size. This problem is most frequently encountered with flash media storage over larger capacity hard drives. Now those WD Passport External HD's not only include formatting info but they also include a bundle of crappy automatic backup software further monopolizing your storage space. So in conclusion you can do a clean reformat and free up some additional space by wiping all the backup software but will never be able to reclaim all of the advertised storage space because they are giving you the unformatted space available.
This is the answer. In computer terms the scale goes up in increments of 1024. In normal language however kilo means 1,000, mega means 1,000,000, giga means 1,000,000,000. So manufacturers are a bit tricky and label the total capacity using the metric terms, and then when your computer loads the drive it labels it in computing terms.
The same system of measurement has to be used legally. Imagine a timeclock. I once worked at a place that we clocked in on a register, but the actual punch in time was calculated off of a system located somewhere else that had a different time on it. even though the clock on the register said one time, the punch in was registered a different time. That is illegal. 320gb minus operating system space does not equal 297gbs. having a dedicated, non recoverable space on the drive should not be counted because I can't use it. With that mentality, a company could easily make a 1tb drive filled with dedicated software permanently installed that leaves you only 10gb to play with, but advertised as a 1tb drive. Because the memory of the drive is, technically at 1tb.
That isn't what is happening here though. You can delete their software off the drive and format it completely clean if you want. The difference in stated sizes are not because of any space being taken away, but rather because it is in two different formats that can be directly converted between. (a bit like how tonnes and tons are actually two different units of measurement) It can be confusing yes, but the fault really lies with early computer programmers, who simplified things for themselves by defining kilobytes and megabytes in an inaccurate way, their logic being that 1024 was close enough to 1000 not to really matter. Unfortunately as capacities have grown much larger the error becomes more pronounced.
No! I can't! That's what I've been trying to tell you! The fucking program will NOT come off by any conventional means!!
I still don't think you are understanding. That has nothing to do with the software installed on the drive. On the box it said 320GB. That is based on a literal metric use of the term Gigabyte. Your computer then looks at the drive and gives it a size based on the computer definition of the term Gigabyte. Those two definitions are not the same. Yes it sucks, but this is not a new thing, it has been a known inconsistency for decades. It is like buying 320 tons of something and then complaining when you are delivered 290 tonnes.
Not really. WD and other companies have been sued over this, but have been able to settle without any admission of criminal wrongdoing. Maybe if you have a tech savvy attorney general, you can get him pissed off enough about the idea to file charges, but basically, the capacity figures are bullshit and the law's not doing anything about it.
Bailey, so what ACTUAL capacity does your 1tb drive have? by your logic, you should only have around 931mb.
That is correct. (except it is gigabytes, not megabytes) It's not my logic, I'm not even saying it is the right way of doing things. It is obviously silly to have an inconsistency in an area like this. It is however the way things are, and always have been. (Go dig out a 1.44MB floppy disc if you still have a drive in your pc and see what size it is reported as) One reason that manufacturers are obviously hesitant to label their drives using the incorrect non-metric measurements used by computers is that it would put them at a severe disadvantage compared to their competitors as casual consumers would not understand the issue and see their drives as being more expensive for the size. It may make you happy to know that after this debacle carrying on for several decades there are plans that will eventually resolve it. While the traditional has always been for magnetic media to be labeled in metric terms, solid state memory such as ram has always been labeled using the computer definitions. This means that Solid State Drives do not have this inconsistency issue, and as they eventually take over the market it will disappear.
Yes! You can! That's what they've been trying to tell you! I have a a WD My Passport Drive. I have the 500GB variant. I formatted it the moment I plugged it in and all of WD's software is history. Gone.
The definition that says when I look at the drive on the computer, it tells me how many GB are available to use. Honestly, no other definition is useful or needs to be used. BTW: I plugged it into my imac, OS9 to see if that would work, and it wanted an immediate format only to 297.4gb. That's when I gave up my quest.
Do a disk wipe, then reformat, that's all there is to it, you can use Acronis WD Edition: http://support.wdc.com/product/downloaddetail.asp?swid=119&type=download&wdc_lang=en for the wipe. I have a WD HD and this process only took me a few minutes.
298 GB, if you count 1kB as 1024 bytes, 1 MB as 1024kB, and 1 GB as 1024MB, yes. If you count 1 kB as 1000 bytes, 1 MB as 1000 KB, and 1 GB as 1000 GB, then it has 320 GB. To disambiguate, the units kibibyte (kiB), mebibyte (MiB), and gibibyte (GiB) were created for the former set of measurements. 320 GB is ~298 GiB. Regardless, the drive holds approximately 3.20 billion bytes. 1 GB can hold fewer files of a given size than 1 GiB.
