A Simple question! How do I view my memory/hard drive space?

Hi,
Can someone please tell me how to view how much space I have left on my hard
drive and much memory I have free?
I'm thinking of getting a new PC (with XP!) and want to know what a "good"
amount of memory is to go for! 80GB seems to be the max in the cheaper ranges
and I'm not sure that's enough!
Thanks in advance,
Mark

Mark,

Use Windows Explorer to check the amount of space available on your hard
disk. As for free memory (that is RAM and virtual memory) I would
strongly recommend that you forget about this and let the operating system
look after memory management for you, something it is designed to do and
does pretty well.

XP works well in a partition of around 8GB. Win Me works well in a
partition of around 2GB. Any additional hard disk space will be used to
store your data. Depending on what you do with your computer 80GB will
probably do very nicely although it you work with large video files and do
video editing you would need more.
--
Mike Maltby MS-MVP



Marco772 wrote:

Hi,
Can someone please tell me how to view how much space I have left on
my hard drive and much memory I have free?
I'm thinking of getting a new PC (with XP!) and want to know what a
"good" amount of memory is to go for! 80GB seems to be the max in the
cheaper ranges and I'm not sure that's enough!
Thanks in advance,

You better do some more reading - memory and harddrive space, though
measured using the same units, are NOT the same.

Memory is the amount of RAM on your system and harddrive space is the amount
of storage space on your system.

"Marco772" wrote in message
...
Hi,
Can someone please tell me how to view how much space I have left on my
hard
drive and much memory I have free?
I'm thinking of getting a new PC (with XP!) and want to know what a "good"
amount of memory is to go for! 80GB seems to be the max in the cheaper
ranges
and I'm not sure that's enough!
Thanks in advance,
Mark

Yes Jerry, I don't know much about PCs but I realise THAT much! I just
wondered how to view the figures individually. Thanks for the reply tho!
Thanks Mike for your answer. I looked on Explorer (the pie chart is what I
was looking for!) and I've used 29 GB and have 8GB free, so I guess I've lost
3GB in the last five years because I'm sure I started with 40!
Thanks again
Mark

"Jerry" wrote:

You better do some more reading - memory and harddrive space, though
measured using the same units, are NOT the same.

Memory is the amount of RAM on your system and harddrive space is the amount
of storage space on your system.

"Marco772" wrote in message
...
Hi,
Can someone please tell me how to view how much space I have left on my
hard
drive and much memory I have free?
I'm thinking of getting a new PC (with XP!) and want to know what a "good"
amount of memory is to go for! 80GB seems to be the max in the cheaper
ranges
and I'm not sure that's enough!
Thanks in advance,
Mark

Check your D drive....it is probably 2 GB.

Heather
"Marco772" wrote in message
...
Yes Jerry, I don't know much about PCs but I realise THAT much! I just
wondered how to view the figures individually. Thanks for the reply tho!
Thanks Mike for your answer. I looked on Explorer (the pie chart is what I
was looking for!) and I've used 29 GB and have 8GB free, so I guess I've
lost
3GB in the last five years because I'm sure I started with 40!
Thanks again
Mark

"Jerry" wrote:

You better do some more reading - memory and harddrive space, though
measured using the same units, are NOT the same.

Memory is the amount of RAM on your system and harddrive space is the
amount
of storage space on your system.

"Marco772" wrote in message
...
Hi,
Can someone please tell me how to view how much space I have left on
my
hard
drive and much memory I have free?
I'm thinking of getting a new PC (with XP!) and want to know what a
"good"
amount of memory is to go for! 80GB seems to be the max in the cheaper
ranges
and I'm not sure that's enough!
Thanks in advance,
Mark

Mark,

You haven't "lost" any hard disk space. Your hard disk today is exactly
the same size as when you bought it. However the 40GB hard disk that you
bought was a "marketing" 40 GB, that is 40,000,000,000 bytes with
1,000,000,000 bytes equalling one gigabyte. However Windows Explorer like
most computer uses a binary definition of a gigabyte which is 2**30 or
1,073,741,824 bytes. So what "marketing" call 40GB is in fact 40 x 10**9
/ 2**30 which is 37.25GB which is roughly what you are seeing in Windows
Explorer.
--
Mike Maltby MS-MVP



Marco772 wrote:

Yes Jerry, I don't know much about PCs but I realise THAT much! I just
wondered how to view the figures individually. Thanks for the reply
tho! Thanks Mike for your answer. I looked on Explorer (the pie chart
is what I was looking for!) and I've used 29 GB and have 8GB free, so
I guess I've lost 3GB in the last five years because I'm sure I
started with 40!
Thanks again

Heather wrote:

Check your D drive....it is probably 2 GB.

Or do some binary maths. g
--
Mike Maltby MS-MVP

Thanks Heather, erm, how do I do that exactly? When I click on the (D) in
Explorer it just tells me to insert a disc. Hmm..
Mark

"Heather" wrote:

Check your D drive....it is probably 2 GB.

Heather
"Marco772" wrote in message
...
Yes Jerry, I don't know much about PCs but I realise THAT much! I just
wondered how to view the figures individually. Thanks for the reply tho!
Thanks Mike for your answer. I looked on Explorer (the pie chart is what I
was looking for!) and I've used 29 GB and have 8GB free, so I guess I've
lost
3GB in the last five years because I'm sure I started with 40!
Thanks again
Mark

"Jerry" wrote:

You better do some more reading - memory and harddrive space, though
measured using the same units, are NOT the same.

Memory is the amount of RAM on your system and harddrive space is the
amount
of storage space on your system.

"Marco772" wrote in message
...
Hi,
Can someone please tell me how to view how much space I have left on
my
hard
drive and much memory I have free?
I'm thinking of getting a new PC (with XP!) and want to know what a
"good"
amount of memory is to go for! 80GB seems to be the max in the cheaper
ranges
and I'm not sure that's enough!
Thanks in advance,
Mark

Mike,
Ah, well, it seems so obvious now! *ahem* (o: I get the gist, though, that's
the main thing! Thanks very much for all your help, I've learnt a few things
tonight (including that 80GB will probably be ample! Someone told me I'd be
unable to play super spanky high spec games like Half Life 2 with a mere
80GB, but I have my doubts as to the validity of that! Although, if you're
still feeling helpful?..)!
Regards
Mark


"Mike M" wrote:

Mark,

You haven't "lost" any hard disk space. Your hard disk today is exactly
the same size as when you bought it. However the 40GB hard disk that you
bought was a "marketing" 40 GB, that is 40,000,000,000 bytes with
1,000,000,000 bytes equalling one gigabyte. However Windows Explorer like
most computer uses a binary definition of a gigabyte which is 2**30 or
1,073,741,824 bytes. So what "marketing" call 40GB is in fact 40 x 10**9
/ 2**30 which is 37.25GB which is roughly what you are seeing in Windows
Explorer.
--
Mike Maltby MS-MVP



Marco772 wrote:

Yes Jerry, I don't know much about PCs but I realise THAT much! I just
wondered how to view the figures individually. Thanks for the reply
tho! Thanks Mike for your answer. I looked on Explorer (the pie chart
is what I was looking for!) and I've used 29 GB and have 8GB free, so
I guess I've lost 3GB in the last five years because I'm sure I
started with 40!
Thanks again

Mark,

I'm not a gamer but http://halflife2.filefront.com/info/HL2_Requirements
shows the system requirements for Half Life 2 to include 4.5GB of hard
disk space.

BTW Google is an excellent tool to use when seeking the answer to
questions such as yours.
--
Mike Maltby MS-MVP



Marco772 wrote:

Ah, well, it seems so obvious now! *ahem* (o: I get the gist, though,
that's the main thing! Thanks very much for all your help, I've
learnt a few things tonight (including that 80GB will probably be
ample! Someone told me I'd be unable to play super spanky high spec
games like Half Life 2 with a mere 80GB, but I have my doubts as to
the validity of that! Although, if you're still feeling helpful?..)!
Regards