I recently formatted my Sony Vaio desktop computer. I've done this several times in the past, and when the process has finished, it has always said that disk C: has 12.8 GB free out of 15.5 GB. This time when I did it, it said that there were only 12.2 GB free. I thought that maybe the reformat process didn't "take" right, so I did it again, with the same result. So then I wondered if someone had somehow accessed my computer (online) and put something onto the hard drive that couldn't be removed even with reformatting. So I did a complete disk wipe, then once again ran the restore disks. Same result – still 12.2 GB free instead of 12.8. Does anyone have an idea about why this is happening? In one sense, it's not that big a deal, as I have way more disk space available than I'll ever use (60 GB total), but I'm curious about why the reformatting process is taking up more space than it used to. 600 MB (.6 GB) is a big difference, it seems to me. Could it be that there's a defect on the disk which is causing this different result? Or COULD someone have put something on the disk that's not overwritable? (But how could something not be overwritable, especially with a disk wipe?) I have run Adaware and Spybot Search and Destroy and found nothing but a few tracking cookies. Thanks for any input you might have. P.S. I'm using Windows XP.