My friend has a problem on his hdd where it displays in "my computer" that his C: partition (created with partition magic) displays as having used up 4 GB more than it should... ie it says drive space used: 8GB but all files (including hidden) reports as 4GB. Now i have checked his other partitions and they are fine. I also checked my C: partition (windows disk management created) and mine is off by 5GB... Is this just some misc winxp glitch? where is the space gone? I know a fair bit about computers but have never thought about this until my friend raised the query... Many Thanks, Matt www.bbcomputing.co.uk matt@bbcomputing.co.uk

I may be slightly out on this but I seem to recall, in the dim & distant past, being taught that files can take up more space on the disk than their actual size. This is due to the cluster size(?) as a (for example) 1kb file may take up a 16Kb space due to the way computers handle allocations on the drive. If you multiply this by the number of small filess you have oin your PC, there's your 'missing' space. I'll post back if I can remember any more exact details. "I know that I'm mad - I've always been mad..."

lol thanks for the info... good to know that XP isnt taking up 5GB of space more than it should and not telling me about it on purpose. Matt www.bbcomputing.co.uk matt@bbcomputing.co.uk

That would be "slack" - the minimum space a file can occupy is one cluster, so if the cluster size is 16K, a 1K file would still use 16. Larger partitions tend to have greater cluster sizes Much depends on the partition system and size - here's a list for NTFS etc (it's simpler with FAT systems) Computers in the future may have only 1,000 vacuum tubes and perhaps only weigh 1 1/2 tons. - Popular Mechanics, 1949

A truly enlightening article jboy. Thanks for the info... Matt www.bbcomputing.co.uk matt@bbcomputing.co.uk