12-06-2008, 12:18 AM

Ok here's the story. I bought a Macbook pro from a friend who bought it new in February of 2007. I figured the easiest way to wipe the whole thing clean and start over was to install the leopard operating system and choose the "erase and install" option. All of that went perfectly fine, but I now notice that my hard drive has only 85.53 GB of available space. There is NOTHING on this computer as I just erased it all while installing leopard. I was told this was a 160GB Macbook Pro, but even if I was misinformed and it is in fact a 120GB only having 85GB available seems a bit low (35GB lower than it should be, and potentially 75GB lower than it should be if this is in fact a 160GB computer).

There's the story. My question is, does this sound out of the ordinary? How do I find out for sure whether this is a 120 or a 160GB computer, and is it really normal for that to equate to only 85GB or available space? I've tried looking up "about this mac", but all that tells me is the amount of RAM (3GB). Thanks in advance for your help!

12-06-2008, 12:49 AM

well you always lose a little of your capacity from data needed to run the hard drive. Leopard is only like a 10GB install I think so yes this is out of the ordinary. To find out what the hard drive is actually (assuming there's a problem that's losing space) you probably have to open it.

However more likely is that you didn't actually erase the drive. If you're sure you did, are you sure you haven't added any files, that this is a completely fresh, clean install? Your available space is what is free. So if you added your music files after the install (just an example) your free space goes down. Your total space does not. That's what you need to check. You should be able to right-click your hard drive and click "Get Info" (or ctrl click if you just have one button) and both those numbers are there. You probably already know that since you found available space.

So what does total space say?

12-06-2008, 02:03 AM

So when you say I'll "probably have to open it", do you mean literally open up the computer? How would I do that and where would I look?
I am as sure as I can be that I did actually erase the drive, and haven't installed anything else since. I "right clicked" the HD and the capacity say's 111.47GB with 85.53GB available. Why is it only saying I have a "Capacity" of 111.47? Shouldn't that say either 120GB or 160GB? What does everyone else's out there say??? Thanks!

12-06-2008, 02:38 AM

I think it's a 120GB HDD because if it was a 160GB HDD without anything installed it would be around 149GB.

12-06-2008, 02:53 AM

you loose space to formatting (on all computers) and the difference between what the operating system considers a gig 1024 vs what the hard drive manufacture considers a gig 1000

12-06-2008, 04:29 AM

CR and Powerbook G4 are correct. You have a 120GB Hard Drive. My iBook has a 120GB drive. With Leopard and iLife and iWork and a few more applications I have maybe 85GB free.

12-06-2008, 09:00 AM

All of these posts are right. When I said open it up, I meant that if the software was glitching for some reason and said your total space was 85GB then the only for sure way to tell would be to open the macbook's casing and look at the hard drive yourself (although I'm not even sure this is possible).

However based on those numbers I'd have to agree with the previous posts, It's a 120 GB hard drive. You always lose some to formatting and after installing leopard you're probably about where you should be.

12-06-2008, 10:54 AM

Just launch System Profiler or Disk Utility and check out the hard drive info there...a "120GB" drive is typically a little over 110GB, formatted.

12-06-2008, 12:09 PM

Great thanks so much for everyones help... Just so I have this straight, it is completely normal for the "capacity" in the system profiler to say 111GB instead of 120? Thanks again everyone!

12-06-2008, 12:40 PM

it shows it in base 2, not base 10 (which would show as 120)

so same space, just different ways of expressing it. If you want to see this in a pretty glaring fashion open up terminal and type

df -h


then type df -H


One reports in base 2 (df -h), the other in base 10

12-06-2008, 02:49 PM

Originally Posted by Mdr1985@aol.com

Just so I have this straight, it is completely normal for the "capacity" in the system profiler to say 111GB instead of 120?

Yes.

12-06-2008, 03:30 PM

Work on about 8-12% formatting and about 20GB for Leopard which makes it just right. Today a 120GB HDD is really small.

Look around for an external HDD, USB2 and firewire connections will make it bootable, and use that to back up systems, photos etc and keep the internal drive mean and slim.