Windows reporting less space on SSD. Is it the ex-linux partition?

Question

I attempted a Windows 8.1/ LinuxMint dualboot on the same drive. After giving up on Mint, I would like to have my disk space back. I reserved about 20 GB for Mint when I installed it. As a result Windows now shows the capacity of the drive as 232 GB and not 250 GB. How can I

a) detect the lost partition

b) format it

c reallocate it back to the main partition ?

Is there any Windows software that does this?

Answer 1

Windows is actually reporting the disk capacity correctly. And your Linux partition is gone.

Let me explain...
When you buy a 250 GB hard drive, you expect to have 250 GB of storage.

1 GB = 1024 MB = (1024 x 1024) KB = (1024 x 1024 x 1024) bytes

However, when HDD manufacturers advertise their hard drive capacities, they do so in decimal multiples. So when they say their HDD has a capacity of say 250 GB, they actually mean:

250       GB = 250       x 1000 MB
250000    MB = 250000    x 1000 KB
250000000 KB = 250000000 x 1000 bytes

Total Capacity: 250000000000 bytes

But we know a megabyte isn't 1000 KB, it's actually 1024 KB so when you divide the numbers by 1024, you get the actual storage capacities as reported by Windows:

250000000000 bytes = 250000000000 / 1024 KB
244140625    KB    = 244140625    / 1024 MB
238418.57    MB    = 238418.57    / 1024 GB

Total Capacity: 232.83 GB

Now, that's not all. Some space on the hard drive is allocated for stuff like partition tables, the Master File Table (on NTFS partitions), etc. so what you get is usually lower than this value.

Here's a table showing what to expect:

Manufacturer Capacity   Actual Capacity
80 GB                   74.4 GB
120 GB                  111 GB
250 GB                  232 GB
320 GB                  298 GB
1.0 TB                  932 GB
1.5 TB                  1.36 TB

EDIT: Made changes to answer to show correct values. Thanks to @Daniel B for the comment.