Harddrive space problem.

This happened because your brother's computer is infected with a virus or otherwise corrupted. Take the drive and both computers to a local tech to further diagnose the problem and that tech can probably recover your files. I think your brother should pay for the repairs - his computer has some malware that may have overwritten your files. This is why you should do two things - first, always have two kinds of backups - copy vital files to a usb memory stick, and second, don't lend anyone any device you plug into your computer - that is how viruses are spread.

It depends what "units" you use when you measure.

For example, it could be that the
'20GB' is 20 * 1000 * 1000 * 1000, while
'18GB' is 18.6 * 1024 * 1024 * 1024,
rounded-down to 2 decimal places,
e.g., '18.6' is 3 decimal places, while '18.0' is 2 decimal places.

This is a "trick" by Toshiba (and all other disk-manufacturers) to make their disk-drives more "attractive".

The HP Pavilion a350n Desktop PC, came out in late 2003.

This suggests to me, that you may have had the computer a long time.

You need to clean the harddrive of,
A) Unnecessary files,
B) Fragmented files,
C) Unused programs, and applications,
D) Plus frequently defragment the harddrive.

A, and B.
The best method is to use a Registry Cleaner. I recommend a Free one.

Why?
A) It is Free.
B) It works as well, or better than the paid fore versions.

CCleaner.

This is Wikipedia, and the article on Ccleaner,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ccleaner

The home page for Ccleaner is on the upper right, underneath the illustration.

Should you wish to download, install, and use this free program, come back with a comment, and I'll walk you through using it.
After you know how you'll find out it's really easy.

Every time you go to a website, you pick up cookies. These are harmless, but after a given time they take up space on your harddrive.

Whenever your harddrive is more than 50 percent full, your computer starts to slow down. You really start noticing it, when your harddrive is more than 70 percent full.

30 percent Free Space.

With Windows running, Left-click on Start, then Left-click on My Computer.
Look at Local Disk (C:)

This is your harddrive.
What percentage of Free Space do you have?

Don't see this? It could be the type of View you are using.
Go to the top header. Look for the icon that looks like a rectangle with 6 colored squares in it, and has a black triangle pointing down.
(To the right of the yellow Folders icon)

Click on the Black triangle. It's a Down Arrow. There will be a drop down list. Left-click on - Details

Now what percentage of Free Space do you have?

Whenever you have a program, or application that you have deleted, there will be file fragments left behind. These take up space on the harddrive.

When your harddrive has about 5 to 10 percent left of Free Space, your computer will crawl like a Snail.
You can't defragment your harddrive if you do not have enough Free Space left on your harddrive.

Go to Start>Control Panel>Add/Remove Programs.

After the Add/Remove Programs list has populated, look for programs, or applications you may have installed, and rarely, If ever use anymore.

Get rid of the one's you don't need.
DO NOT Remove any Windows programs!

Unused programs/applications take up harddrive free space.

After you have removed all programs/applications that are unused, run Ccleaner.
Clean the Windows registry.

D) After you have enough Fee Space on the harddrive, you can run defragment.

(Start>Control Panel>Performance and Maintenance>Rearrange Items on Your Computer to Make Programs Run Faster.

If you do not see Performance and Maintenance, you are in the Classic view.
If you go up to the top left corner, you will see the Control Panel heading, and underneath it -
'Switch to Category View'

Left-click on it. If you desire the Classic View again, you can always switch back)

You may get a comment about using your restoration CD disk, to restore your computer.

1) IF, you still have the Restoration CD disk, you have my respect! Very few of us still have this disk after 3 years, much less almost 7.

2) BE AWARE, that you will restore the computer back to the way it was, when it came from the factory.

Back to Day 1.

FROM THE FACTORY

This means any Programs, or Applications you have installed, or downloaded, will be GONE!

This means any personal documents you have will be GONE!

My Photos, My Videos, My Music, and any saved documents, or documents you have made. (My Documents folder)

GONE!

Just wanted you to be aware of that.

Back up your personal documents to CD, or DVD disks. (DVD-R, or RW for videos)

You need the program, or application CD disks, to put them back on the computer.
You cannot copy them to a disk.

I await your questions.

joecoolvette

Its probably formatted not to use the entire space of the disk, is there another partition or "D" drive where your restore/backup stuff is? That could be take up the rest of the space. Hard disks are always described as being a certain size but can be formatted by windows tlo split up the drive into smaller chunks called partitions. Your C drive/partition might be way less then 30Gb therefore only showing up as 22Gb

Most common things.
1. First check how much memory you have left on your hard drive. If most of the space is taken up, as painful as it is, you may have to delete some files.
2. If you still have most of your space available on the hard drive... check for overheating, it may be a foresight for the red rings of death.

you got a problem there.
may be you can return it and get a 80GB harddrive. e-mail me fo rinstruction how to install update BIOS.

Try to turn it off and quickly turn it on again in a split second.

And buy a second hard disk just in case.

Using Hibernate uses lots of disk space, be sure you got atleast 20GB of free disk space on your hardisk when using Hibernate, also use surface disk checking software to see if you got badsector on your disk.

hi there

the space is still there its just has not been partictioned. Goto diskmanager and you will see the other 60 gig that has not been partictioned, use windows to create a logical drive then format it then you will see the other 60 gig.

good luck

smeags

Hi, you aint lost 20gb. 1mb is 1024 1gb aint 1000mb for a example i have a 40gb hard drive here, it displays 34.3gb 200gb hard drive is usually 186gb its normal dont worry. :-) all the best John