ext. hd properties and and actual folder capacity disagree

[lartomar2002]

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

 

[boohbah]

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

 

[GeneO]

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

 

[lartomar2002]

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

 

[boohbah]

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!

 

[lartomar2002]

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.

 

[lartomar2002]

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?

 

[lartomar2002]

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?

 

[boohbah]

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

 

[lartomar2002]

thank you, i have.

 

[logicearth]

Disk Properties is always right. Always.
Just putting that out there.

 

[boohbah]

has that worked for you then?

 

[lartomar2002]

yes it has.

 

[boohbah]

Thats good news, glad you got it fixed. sorry for delays been busy elsewhere!