320GB hard drive only has 294GB memory what's up with that?

the operating sytem  must takes up 26 gb.if you buy a new pc with a ..say 320gb you never get 320gb because of widows os

if that's how it is were does the 26GB come from in the 4GB systems

I think this might be back-up storage for hard-drives.

Even if you buy a new laptop or even just a new hard-drive it is never the amount it says.

The Xbox 360 OS isn't 26GB, heck Windows 7 is only 6GB.  The 360's Operating system is actually about 120MB.

The reason why you don't get the full 320GB is down to way the formatting of the drive from Bytes to Megabytes is kind of lost in translation.  Let me explain:

Determining drive capacity can be confusing at times because of the different measurement standards that are often used. When dealing with Windows and Mac based systems, you will commonly see both decimal measurements and binary measurements of a drive's capacity. In either case, a drive's capacity is measured by using the total number of bytes available on the drive. As long as the drive displays the correct number of bytes (approximate), you are getting the drive's full capacity.

Decimal vs. Binary:
For simplicity and consistency, hard drive manufacturers define a megabyte as 1,000,000 bytes and a gigabyte as 1,000,000,000 bytes. This is a decimal (base 10) measurement and is the industry standard. However, certain system BIOSs, FDISK and Windows define a megabyte as 1,048,576 bytes and a gigabyte as 1,073,741,824 bytes.

To Determine Decimal Capacity:
A decimal capacity is determined by dividing the total number of bytes, by the number of bytes per gigabyte (1,000,000,000 using base 10).

To Determine Binary Capacity:
A binary capacity is determined by dividing the total number of bytes, by the number of bytes per gigabyte (1,073,741,824 using base 2).

This is why different utilities will report different capacities for the same drive. The number of bytes is the same, but a different number of bytes is used to make a megabyte and a gigabyte. This is similar to the difference between 0 degrees Celsius and 32 degrees Fahrenheit. It is the same temperature, but will be reported differently depending on the scale you are using.

wow ! you know your zero's and one's obsessive power

I fully understand this, but if i'm being perfectly honest, I think it would make more sense for Microsoft to correct this and sell you the console with 320gb USABLE storage, because they obviously know about this

I would make sense to the end user, but this thing has been going on for years, even Apple uses the same system.  When I bought my '32GB' iPod Touch, I actually got 29.01 of real space.  When I buy my 4.7GB DVD discs and insert them into my PC, I actually get 4.38GB of usable space.

The PS3 uses the same formatting.  Their 320GB console has about 298GB of usable space.

With computer storage it isn't 1000 MB = to 1GB, it's more like 932MB = to 1GB.  You can use that rough guide to figure out the real size what ever storage device you buy. So a 500GB hard drive will actualy be about 466GB.

I contacted x-box support and they told me the missing space is the os but WOW that is one huge os I don't see how the x-box has a larger os than my computer

Xbox support are quite laughable with their technical knowledge lol.  If the 360's OS was 26GB it would be bigger than Windows 98, XP, Vista, Windows 7 and Mac OS 10 Lion all combined together!

Believe me, what they've told you is utter tosh.  The 360's OS can currently only use up 128MB.  Before the NXE, the OS was only 16MB.

this is exactly what they're telling me now does this sound right to any of you?  every time I download info to play one of the old x-box games it only takes a few MB all the old x-box games combined can't take up 28 GB can it? there are no demos on my hard drive I erased them and still only 294GB

As I understand, you are not getting the full storage size of the 320 GB s hard drive

The available memory space for the 320 GB hard drive is 291 GB. This is less than the total capacity of the hard drive. Some space is used for system information, software that allows you to play some original Xbox games, and game demos.