Format SATA Drive, Lost memory

[durbanboy]

I have just purchased a brand new Hitachi Deskstar 500gb SATA Harddrive.
When installed in my PC, I performed a NEW Windows XP installation. When it got to the point when it wants to fromat the drive, it tells me there is only 476gb available.
My question is - where is the other 24gb, and how do I recover it?
After all 24gb is a sh*t load of storage.
I have completed the installation, and don't want to start again if possible.

All comments welcome.

[Xlphos]

That is business GB compared to Computer GB.

1,000,000,000 bytes is one Gigabyte. You hardrive should have about 500,000,000,000 bytes. But Windows calls a Gibibyte a Gigabyte. A Gibibyte is 1,073,741,824. So there appears to be a loss in space.

This may be confusing but this may help explain better.

[durbanboy]

Thanks for your swift response.
Your comments and the article included does explain the reason why.
I just wish that there was an industry standard that everyone stuck to.