Windows 7: ext. hd properties and and actual folder capacity disagree

i did a backup of my doc,pics,and favorites on my ext hd. when i right click on the properties for the ext hd it says there are 21.3gb being used but when i open the drive and check the properties of the 1 folder there it says it is only 5.69gb. what could be happening here? thanks

there may be some files in a hidden recycle bin. if you go to organize then select folder and search options,then choose view tab in the pop out window,then check the box "show hidden folders , files and drives" then look in the external and see what the size of the recycle bin is , you can clean it out using ccleaner i got back 50Gb that way

Do you haveor have you had system protection enabled for the drive? If so there may be hidden shadow copies of files you have previously deleted or overwritten.

Gene

boohbah, i checked and all of your suggestions were checked and i still did not find anything.
GeneO, how would i find out about system protection being enabled? how would i find hidden shadow copies?
thanks to both of you

Ok try running this free software it will show you what is taking up the space on your external.

Also maybe read through this thread and see if anything helps!

i ran windirstat and here are the results:
Hard Drive "K"-20.9gb
$Recycle.bin-9.0gb
First Backup-5.7gb
System Volume Information-4.9gb
Recycle-1.4gb
<files>-294.9kb
It shows that i have 2 recylces which i can not find on the drive(i do have "show hidden files checked in folder options).
What is "system volume information(4.9gb) and do i need it? also what do i do from here ? windirstat does allow me to empty the recycle bins but, what if i only want to empty the "K" drive recycles?
thanks, lartomar2002
p.s. when i do a search for $Recycle.Bin it does not show up.

ok i did what you suggested. while you were senting me a reply i was sending you the results of the windirstat. now after turning off the protection. should i still empty the 2 recycles? and what about the system volume information?

i just found that when i click on drive "K" properties and click disk cleanup it says i can remove 8.69 gb. is this all that i should remove?

Try use cc cleaner to clean the drive k recycle bin!

thank you, i have.