HDD showing incorrect free space, wasn't last night!

Hey guys,

Kinda late I know, I actually just finished backing up my stuff from earlier! One thing that sucks about large HDDs, really long back ups. So after clearing the drive of all my files and running WinDirStat, the drive shows a huge chunk of space being used, even though nothing is on it, well almost nothing. If you look at the attachment, that shows the hidden files on there, but again in terms of space they aren't taking much, unless somehow those files are making the drive think there is more space being used than there actually is, Windows shows 2.27 TB free of 3.63 TB and WinDirStat shows 2.3 TB of 3.6 TB (guess they round those numbers).

I guess I can send this back and get it exchanged, but would that be necessary? Wouldn't a full format possibly correct the issues or does this sound like a typical HDD failure (or upcoming failure) to you guys? I haven't noticed any strange or loud noises coming from the drive and it passed any of the SeaTools tests I ran (didn't run any of the long tests however).

I don't mind if I have to send this back, but really? Has this drive gone bad already? Oh and I went with Hitachi since WD owns them and I figured, hey, maybe WD has helped them out on the manufacturing side of things, but maybe not, WD have been the best drives for me by far, wish they made Caviar Blacks larger than 2TB.

Thanks again for the input.

Just a quick update, I deleted the volume and then went to quick format the Hitachi drive to see how much space there was, now Windows and WinDirStat both show a total space of 1.63 TB, 2 TB are now missing!

I saw this issue on another forum and looks like running "error checking" was the problem. I am going to do a full format and see what programs I can run to possibly recover the missing space. If that doesn't work, I will be sending this back for a replacement/refund.

Have you tried creating multiple partitions < 2 GB each ?
Might be an issue with the 4 GB HD/partition size?

Well when I initially installed the drive, I used the GPT setting since it's over 2 TB, and it read fine, it showed 3.63 TB of free space and I was able to use it without any problems up until recently. I just had one partition on this drive since it is my storage/back up drive.

The only thing that changed was that I re-installed Windows on my boot drive and during that time something happened to the Hitachi (storage) drive, I should have kept in unplugged while installing. After that install, certain files became corrupted on the Hitachi drive, which I noticed the other day, so that's why I ran "error checking" on it. After running that, it seems to have made things worse as it was showing a full drive when there should have been 1.3 TB free.

So now after deleting that volume, instead of 3.63 TB of total space it shows 1.63 TB total space, I'm running a full format now, so hopefully it sorts things out. If not, will have to see if there are any other programs that might recover this lost space or this drive goes back to Hitachi.

After quick formatting, full formatting, SeaTools tests, deleting volumes, error checking again, there has been no solution. I will note that my drive now shows 1.63 TB total space instead of 3.63 TB and that 142MB is automatically taken up on the drive (even though there are no files or data on the drive). I believe what caused this was running error checking in the first place, so be very careful before you do!

So I messaged Hitachi and they said most likely if the drive isn't fixed after formatting, then it most likely has bad sectors or has stopped performing properly. They also said that other than the tools on their support site, there is nothing else to use to check the drive, kinda funny like I mentioned before, they only have tests that support 2 TB or less so you technically can't even check with 3 TB or more. I should have just gone with another Caviar Black, WD and Hitachi are definitely not that same thing. I really hope this one was just a lemon, cause it looks like I'll be stuck with this guy for the next 3 years, time to RMA, this sucks! First drive failure in like 3-4 years, boo-urns Hitachi, boo-urns indeed!

Well thanks to everyone that replied, sorry I couldn't find a solution, but it's safe to say don't run error checking if your drive may be faulty, seems to only compound the problems. If by the strangest chance this drive becomes functional again I will be sure to post, going to try a couple other things first before RMAing.

Try wiping with Diskpart Clean Command.

Then partition and format in Disk Mgmt to see if any changes.

At that point please post back a screenshot of your maximized Disk mgmt drive map and listings, using Snipping Tool in Start Menu.