Hard Drive Size

Here’s the scenario. You just bought a new 750 GB hard drive. You open your computer case, install your new hard drive and turn on your computer. When your system finishes loading, you look at your 750 GB hard drive and find that your computer only sees 699 GB. What’s that about?

Don’t worry, you are not actually missing 50 GB. Many people seem a little confused to where the 50 gigabytes go. Some people think that it has to do with formatting the hard drive, or that there is some special area that the hard drive is not suppose to use. While this may be partly true, the answer is actually right on the box or paper insert of most retail hard drives. The label says something like, “One gigabyte, or GB, equals one billion bytes when referring to hard drive capacity. One terabyte, or TB, equals 1,000 gigabytes when referring to hard drive capacity. Accessible capacity may vary depending on operating environment and formatting.”

Taken from Wikipedia,

Most operating-system tools report capacity using the same abbreviations but actually use binary prefixes. For instance, the prefix mega-, which normally means 106 (1,000,000), in the context of data storage can mean 220 (1,048,576), which is nearly 5% more. Similar usage has been applied to prefixes of greater magnitude. This results in a discrepancy between the disk manufacturer’s stated capacity and the apparent capacity of the drive when examined through most operating-system tools. The difference becomes even more noticeable for a gigabyte (7%), and again for a terabyte (9%). For a petabyte there is a 11% difference between the SI (1000^5) and binary (1024^5) definitions. For example, Microsoft Windows reports disk capacity both in decimal-based units to 12 or more significant digits and with binary-based units to three significant digits. Thus a disk specified by a disk manufacturer as a 30 GB disk might have its capacity reported by Windows 2000 both as “30,065,098,568 bytes” and “28.0 GB”. The disk manufacturer used the SI definition of “giga”, 109 to arrive at 30 GB; however, because Microsoft Windows, Mac OS and some Linux distributions use “gigabyte” for 1,073,741,824 bytes (230 bytes), the operating system reports capacity of the disk drive as (only) 28.0 GB.

What this means is that the drive manufacturers are using the standard definition of the prefixes kilo, mega, giga, etc (multiples of 10), whereas the operating systems use the same prefixes, but are calculating based on powers of 2. Operating systems define a kilobyte as 1024 bytes, a megabyte as 1024 kilobytes (or 1,048,576 bytes), a gigabyte as 1024 megabytes (or 1,073,741,824 bytes) and so on. SO, here is what is happening to the 750 GB hard drive in the example above:

750 GB = 750,000,000,000 bytes according to the manufacturer. To the manufacturer, and the international standard definition for prefixes, a gigabyte is 10^9 bytes. Since the drive actually contains 750,000,000,000 bytes, the operating system takes the total bytes and divides by 2^30, which is the binary definition of giga. 750,000,000,000 divided by 2^30 is 699 GB. Another way to look at this is the operating system could report the drive as 732,421,875 KB (750,000,000,000 divided by 1024) or 715,256 MB (750,000,000,000 divided by 1024 twice).

As far as the formatting or special no-use area of the hard drive, formatting methods (FAT, NTFS, EXT3, HFS+) does have some small effect on the final drive capacity. There are also some no-use areas of the hard drive that are only used in certain circumstances, but that is a subject for another article.

So your 50 GB isn’t missing, it’s still there. Your hard drive capacity is just being reported using different units.

ZoneAlarm

A little late on this posting, but anyways… If you are still without an internet connection and use ZoneAlarm as your firewall, please see the following news item from ZoneAlarm.

ZoneAlarm Fix

Microsoft Update KB951748 is known to cause loss of internet access for ZoneAlarm users on Windows XP/2000. Windows Vista users are not affected.

Microsoft Update KB951748 - Workaround to Sudden Loss of Internet Access Problem

If you are not interested to read the full article, here’s how to fix this issue.

1. Stop ZoneAlarm by right clicking the system tray icon and selecting “Shutdown ZoneAlarm”
2. Download and install the latest free version here. If you don’t use the free version, please visit ZoneAlarm.com and download the appropriate software.
3. Restart your computer when prompted and your internet connection should be fixed.

Converting Movies From Your Digital Camera

Have you ever tried converting those movie files taken with your digital camera to more friendly format? Well, here is a FREE video conversion software that will do just that.

MP4Cam2AVI

MP4Cam2AVI is MPEG4/MJPEG to AVI converter/joiner for MPEG-4 camcorders and digital photo cameras. It makes MPEG-4 camera clips DivX/XviD compatible and playable with any DVD-MPEG4 player like regular MPEG-4 movie.

MP4Cam2AVI - MPEG4/MJPEG to .AVI converter/joiner for digital cameras

Welcome!

Pardon the dust. The new askdoctorcomputer.com is under construction. In the meantime, here are some tips to fix up your computer.

I have been fixing and configuring computer systems since 1994. In that time, I have come up with a few methods for keeping the bad guys out of computers. No solution will be 100% forever… or even for a few days. You may have seen similar lists elsewhere, but I hope the following will help you take back control of your computer.

The following are different types of attacks that can be taken on your system, followed by what you can do about them.

1: Social Hacks

Problem

If you haven’t heard of this method, you’re not alone. While “social hacking”, or “social engineering”, may not be talked about often, it is the biggest computer security weakness out of any on this list. Why? Through social hacking, your sensitive personal information may literally be handed to the bad guys, even if you have all the latest and greatest security software installed.

Social hacking happens when a malicious person makes the unsuspecting victim do something voluntarily. For example, you may receive an e-mail that looks like it comes from your bank asking for personal information. When you click on the link in the e-mail, the web site you are taken to looks like the legitimate bank’s web site. You fill in the requested information and submit. You may think the bank is the recipient, but instead it could be an identity thief. Congratulations, you are now a victim of social engineering. You can find out more information about social engineering at Wikipedia.

Solution

As you may have guessed, this is also the hardest computer vulnerability to remedy. There is no software to fix User Error. I’m also vulnerable to social engineering. A few things you can do to minimize your vulnerability is:

Stay alert to the current types of social engineering.

Never click on hyperlinks in e-mail that require personal information. Type the address manually into your browser.

Don’t give out personal information unless you can verify the identity of the person requesting the info.

2: Windows/Microsoft Update

Problem

For those who use Windows (85% of you). The Windows operating system has come a long way. With its success comes the unwanted attention of those who spend the time to find exploitable holes in Windows. What is surprising to me is people who have owned Windows installed computers for a decade, but still are not aware that Windows needs to be updated regularly.

Downloading and installing the regular critical updates that Microsoft publishes can save you from a lot of headache.

Solution

Go to Windows Update and at least do the express update. Better yet, set your computer to Auto Update at a regular time. You can access this option by right-clicking on My Computer and selecting Properties. Then go to the AutoUpdate tab and set your options.

3: Spyware and Popups

Problem

Do a dozen windows pop up when you access the internet? You probably have a spyware and popup problem. These two “malware” go together because one usually causes the other. When you visit a malicious web site, a popup may infect your computer with spyware without you knowing it. Once you have spyware installed, it may install other spyware and generate more popups. And the vicious cycle continues.

Solution

If you are already infected, there are ways to rid the spyware from your computer. I don’t care what BestBuy, CompUSA, Geeksquad, etc. told you. The problem is, if the infection is really bad, the fix may not be worth a “professional’s” time.

The quick fix is to install the following two softwares, update them, and then let them do their jobs.

Ad-Aware

Spybot

I would recommend installing and updating them first, and then running them in Safe Mode. To access safe mode in Windows, hold down the F8 key while booting, and then follow the prompts. If you are still having problems or want more info, go to mvps.org

If you would like to prevent further infections of spyware, I would recommend using a modified HOSTS file. My favorite is from mvps.

4: Viruses and Worms

Problem

Do I need to explain the problem here?

Solution

The free solution I use is Grisoft’s AVG Free which can be downloaded here. Don’t forget to update it!

5: Firewall

Problem

Programs, especially malicious software, will try to use your internet connection to phone home for various reasons. Without a firewall, you are allowing any program on your computer to use the internet, unrestricted. This could include viruses, worms or spyware.

Solution

A firewall can be used as a security guard. You tell the security guard who can get in and out of your computer using your internet connection. I recommend using Zonealarm. It will keep track of all programs that have asked for internet access, along with the permissions for each program. When a program tries to reach the internet, Zonealarm will ask you to allow or deny the program internet access. This way, if you see a suspicious program trying to access the internet, just deny access. Then you can investigate what the program is using Google, use AVG to remove the program if it is a virus, or uninstall the unnecesary program.

6: Internet Connection

Problem

Do you like sharing your internet connection with strangers? I didn’t think so. So let’s get your wireless connection secured.

If you have a router but it is not wireless, you should still update your firmware. The latest updates could give your router more security options.

If you don’t have a router, you can skip this section. If you don’t know what a router is, look here. A router is basically a device you use to share your internet connection among several computers.

Solution

First thing to do is update the firmware on your router. You will have to go to the web site of your router’s manufacturer to find the latest firmware to download. Be sure to get the correct firmware for your router’s model. If your router is not wireless, the default settings should be fine. Skip to step 7 if you are using a non-wireless router.
Next, you will want to secure the router’s wireless settings. Use WEP if you must, but WPA is a much stronger encryption method. Go to your router’s wireless settings tab and set the router’s encryption to WPA. I use a random key generator and save the key in a text file on my usb thumb drive. Enter this key in the router’s WPA settings.

The next thing is to change your SSID. This is the name of your wireless network. You can also choose to hide the broadcast of the SSID, but with WPA encryption, I don’t think this is necessary.

That’s all you really need to do to secure your network. If you like, you can look at MAC ID filtering, but WPA is going to be almost full proof for at least another couple years. Find out more about wireless encryption here.