Windows 7: Missing alot of HDD

I just recently purchased a 500GB HDD (Verbatim).

I understand that when you actually plug in the HDD, you will get shorted.



I only actually got 465 GB.

But I am missing more space beyond the original bit they short you.

I only have 2 folders on the Verbatim. 1 folder has 320 GB in it (5 subfolders), and the other is only a few KB, but the visual display of how full the HDD is, says I only have 47.3 GB left.

320 + 47.3 = 367.3 GB

465 - 367.3 = 97.7 GB

I have nearly another 100 GB missing off the original 500 GB purchase.

How can I find out why I am missing SOOOOO much. That is just ridiculous, nearly 20% more of my HDD is gone.




Is there some way of locating this, have tried de-frag, but no difference.

Windows7 pro on Acer Aspire laptop. Other specs below.

Yes, since it's on a laptop, there's probably a manufacturer restore partition on your hard drive taking up that space. This partition will allow you to restore your computer should anything go wrong.

You can see where all the space is by right clicking My Computer --> Click Manager --> Click Disc Management in the left column.

Thanks but that's not it.

The Verbatim HDD is an external. Should have no windows features or folders on it, but it does....why, don't know.
I went and downloaded WinDirStat. Basically it has no idea either.

It shows some windows folders:

msdownld.tmp
$recycle bin
System Volume Information
2 folders that are random numbers/letters (they have lock icon on folder)

Here's a shot. You can see that Windows has allocated some space or folders for some reason, but they are not occupied. The math is still not adding up.


If Windows is locking me out of this drive space, I'm a little pissed off. I can see maybe 5GB or so, but 97.7GB. That's' ridiculous. Especially without actually using it.
I have WAY more than enough space on my C:\ (119 GB free of 144GB)
D:\ (122 GB free of 140 GB)

I also have an external SeaGate 1 TB H:\ (188 GB free of 931 GB)

Why would Windows allocate all that space then not use it. And if it is doing this, why on my external Verbatim? Why not on C:\? I just got rid of my Windows.old folder(used to have Vista Home Premium) and a bunch of old restore points off my C:\, specifically so I could claim back a bunch of my space back, about 2 weeks ago, and was completely happy when I got nearly 40 GB back. Now I am down 97.7GB.

I know I have alot of disc space in total, but that is still more than I am willing to give up.

Now all of a sudden I am down 97.7 GB more. Frustrating.

Thanks but that's not it.

The Verbatim HDD is an external. Should have no windows features or folders on it, but it does....why, don't know.
I went and downloaded WinDirStat. Basically it has no idea either.

It shows some windows folders:

msdownld.tmp
$recycle bin
System Volume Information
2 folders that are random numbers/letters (they have lock icon on folder)

Here's a shot. You can see that Windows has allocated some space or folders for some reason, but they are not occupied. The math is still not adding up.

The Movies music folder, and Video processing folder were the only folders I added myself. BounceBack Express came installed on HDD and Windows, well I guess it just does whatever ever the EFFFF it wants like always.


If Windows is locking me out of this drive space, I'm a little pissed off. I can see maybe 5GB or so, but 97.7GB. That's' ridiculous. Especially without actually using it.
I have WAY more than enough space on my C:\ (119 GB free of 144GB)
D:\ (122 GB free of 140 GB)

I also have an external SeaGate 1 TB H:\ (188 GB free of 931 GB)

Why would Windows allocate all that space then not use it. And if it is doing this, why on my external Verbatim? I just got rid of my Windows.old folder(used to have Vista Home Premium) and a bunch of old restore points off my C:\, specifically so I could claim back a bunch of my space back, about 2 weeks ago, and was completely happy when I got nearly 40 GB back. Now I am down 97.7GB.

I know I have alot of disc space in total, but that is still more than I am willing to give up.

Now all of a sudden I am down 97.7 GB more. Frustrating.

Sorry bout double reply post, don't know what I did there, went to edit, ended up with 2, sorry

Part of what you are seeing is the discrepancy between manufacturers' reported capacity and actual capacity.

Manufacturers like to define a gigabyte as 1000MB, or 1,000,000,000 bytes. Developers have defined a Gigabyte as 1024MB, however, for a total of1,073,741,824 bytes.

The OS uses the latter definition of 1024MB to a GB. Guess what 5,000,000,000 bytes is in gigabytes? 465.661287

So what you are seeing is normal. My 1.5TB drive is actually only 1397.26 GB.

I appreciate what you are saying.....I understand that.

I bought a 500 GB HDD. I only got 465 GB. Because of the discrepancy.

I am missing ANOTHER 97.7 GB on top.


So the 500 GB HDD is missing 97.7 GB(unexplained) + 35 GB (off the top) = 132.7 GB MISSING

That's 26.4% of my original purchase.

This is WAY more than the difference between what they say you get and actually get.

I only lost 69 GB out the box on my SeaGate 1TB external HDD. No extra unexplained missing space on that drive.

You should download a program like Partition Wizard

Post a screenshot of the drive in question.

From that screenshot via WinDirStat it looks like me like your disk is partitioned incorrectly. You should be able to resize the partition via Partition Wizard without destroying the data. I would back up your data before resizing anyway.

For example (Screenshot via Partition Wizard):


In that screenshot you can see that Disk 2 has two partitions. One is 7.88 MB of Unallocated space (Normal) the other is 698 GB of NTFS partitioned space (F: LaCie 700GB). You hard drive will likely show a larger area of unallocated space. Either that, or you got a smaller hd than you should have.

As mentioned, a 500GB showing 465 avail. is normal. For the rest:

What does it look like under the disk management?

Anything unallocated or free?


Control Panel --> Admin. Tools -->
Computer Management --> Storage/Disk Management

Use a mapping program like Windirstat to find where your space is going.