Windows 7: restoring deleted folders

I deleted some folders that had video in them to free up disk space. What I succeeded in doing was allowing the folder contents to remain on the hard drive and deleted my access to them. I used windows restore to restore the folders. But it winds up copying the folder and all contents. Which is to say, it eats up even more disk space. So when I deleted it, I will not have gained anything. How do I delete the contents of the files that were in the folders so I can free the disk space? Thanks.

A normal delete will put the deleted item in the recycle bin.

Did you then empty the recycle bin?

You won't regain the space until you empty the recycle bin.

What happens now if you attempt a normal delete?

Welcome to Windows Seven Forums.

By default, anything you delete goes into the Recycle Bin, which itself is an area of disk space reserved just for this purpose.

You can either delete what's in the Recycle Bin yourself to regain the disk space or you can run Disk Cleanup, which will do it for you.

I'm just intrigued how you managed to deny yourself access in the first place.

I deleted by highlighting the folders, right-click and delete. But none of the folders went to the recycling bin. If they had I'd have simply restored them. And the hard drive space did not increase by the amount of content in the folders. So I conclude that I've deleted the folders but not the content. And now I can't access the content to delete it because the folders no longer exist. Is there some way to browse for the files?

Were these folders on an external hard drive? If so they wouldn't have gone into the recycle bin.

Have a look at this extended disk cleanup tutorial.

Disk Cleanup : Extended

No, they were in a folder on my desktop.

Can you provide more detail? Do you mean Windows System Restore?? As far as I know, it will not restore personal data.

"It" copied the folder and all contents---back to your hard drive?

The desktop folder is 'movies'. I right clicked it, and left clicked 'restore previous versions'.

Confusing, you want to delete folders but keep contents, or delete contents and keep folders?

Sorry for the vagueness. I wanted to delete the folders and their contents to increase disk space . I thought by deleting the folders the contents would automatically be deleted. After deleting all the folders I did not want to keep I went to the recycling bin to empty it and reclaim my disk space. But the folders were not in the recycling bin. And when I checked the available disk space on my C drive I saw that it had not increased by the amount that was in the folders. So, I assume that the folders were deleted but not the contents. I am trying to figure out a way to delete those contents. that is why I tried the 'restore to previous version' function of the desktop folder that contained the deleted folders. I found the deleted folders in the restore box. And I began to restore them. but in doing so I found that all the contents were being added to my hard drive. Which means that I have the contents duplicated. So..., if I restore them just to delete them I am no further ahead than I am now. I am looking for any way to delete those content files. And I appreciate any suggestions. thanks