20GB missing hard disk space Win7, any ideas?

bat999

anewhope wrote: »

Am I reading it wrong, or is that a 1TB drive with the unaccounted 20GB representing just over 2% of the actual volume?

Well spotted.:T

We missed that.:o

Ximian

You could try TreeSize Free to analyse the disk and see what directories/files are using up the space:
http://www.jam-software.com/freeware/index.shtml
On one of my drives I have over 1GB in the Recycler directory, interesting link:
http://ask-leo.com/Recycler

Money_Grabber13579

Format the drive and the 20GB will be released. Assuming there's nothing you want on the external hard drive that is!

JasX

Right, thanks for the suggestions all, seem to be getting somewhere now

Had to manually sieze control of system volume information before treesize could access it but seems to be a host of restore information and recycle bin hangovers, at least i now know what to look for.

Think i've sussed the recycle bin as tho i only have one user account on my home PC when i use the portable drive for work thats a different windows user account so was probably creating a whole separate recycle bin under that separate ownership, not sure about restore points tho, could be a similar effect that caused them to be left intact even after deleting shadow partitions for this PC?

Guess I'll just have to be mindful of this as a pesky windows feature if i'm moving large files around on multiple PCs with differently named user accounts and manually go in and delete them (which will be much easier than emptying and formatting my 1TB drives each time i want the space back)

John_Gray wrote: »

Run TreeSize Free - it should tell you what's on the disk.

Cheers John very useful little program

michaelro wrote: »

Although you have selected to show hidden files, the options below (hide operating files) are still enabled.

doh, should have tried that earlier

anewhope wrote: »

Am I reading it wrong, or is that a 1TB drive with the unaccounted 20GB representing just over 2% of the actual volume?

you, i'm not too fussed on this drive but on my other 100GB portable it was still swiping 20GB, hogging 20% of the full drive for OS overheads seems a little excessive, plus 20GB is still alot of space

John_Gray

Glad that the puzzle has now become clearer! Thanks for posting back.