<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><br><div><blockquote type="cite"><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div>I bought a SimpleTech 750gig external HD. It was Windows formatted in the first place. Once mounted, info window showed the drive had 699 gig free. As suggested in the instruction manual (and as should be done) anyway), I reformated the drive Mac OS Extended journaled. Still 699 gig free. Is there a way te recover this huge amount of lost gig? What are they used for and by what (whom)? Are there some hidden Windows programs and files left on the HD. If so, how to et rid of them to recover that space?</div></div></blockquote><div><br></div>Don't worry, this is a trick used by disk makers to make their disks seem larger than they are. Basically, they use a difference definition of 'GB' to what your system is using.<br><br>They use a system where '1 gigabyte' = 1000000000 bytes, whereas your system uses '1 gigabyte' = 1073741824.<br><br>If you want more details, see for instance<br><br><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigabyte">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigabyte</a><br><br>The confusion comes from the fact the term 'GB' tends to used for both definitions. The correct thing to do is to use 'GiB' for the system used by the hard disk makers. So your disk is actually 750 GiB or in other units, 699 GB. If you do the maths you will see (1073741824/1000000000)*699 = 750<br><br>So don't worry. You haven't lost any disk space, its just not quite as big as you thought...<br><br>Chris</div></body></html>