hard drive memory reduced

Can someone tell if it's normal to have 76.300mb=Free after installing an 80gig hard drive?Thanks

You usually find with most forms of memory / storage devices you won't get
the exact amount it states, it's just one of those things so don't worry there's nothing wrong with it.

It's a little bit of marketing skull-duggery from the equipment manufacturers, although it is backed up by the SI standard.

The common usage is that a Gigabyte = 2^30 bytes, where ^ = to the power of. The SI system is that a Gigabyte = 10^9 bytes. Since 10^9 is less than 2^30, storage manufacturers like to use this one to specify their device sizes, since it makes them look bigger. However, Windows and the MPC use the 1Gb = 2^30 bytes definition, so your 80Gb drive ends up looking like it's only 76 Gb.

OK, I am now officially forum Super-Nerd.

get a load of you.

thank's for the replies guys.i was worried there for a minute

I've got an 8oGB hard rive in my MP, and trust me, it'll be a LONG time before you use even half that, but yes you do lose about 3.5 GB in the conversion.