Solved Moved files to external hard drive but no change in laptop disk size

[kufloyd]

I moved about 10GB of files (using Photoshop Elements) from my laptop's hard disk to an external hard drive. I double checked and the files were moved correctly - they don't show up on the laptop and show up on the external hard drive. However, the laptop's C drive does not show an increase in space. I restarted the laptop but it still shows the same free space as prior to the move.

Any idea why? This is with a Lenovo T440s with Win7.

Thanks,
Kunal

 

[AddRAM]

Dumb question, did you delete the files off C ?

 

[Layback Bear]

If you copied files from your laptop to the external they will show up in both places.

I use Copy To because it give me a chance to verify that everything went well before I remove the files from my computer.

 

[cjkuhlenbeck]

To build off the last post, Did you empty the trash can? It's also entirely possible that they did successfully remove, but then an app took the space back. Me and Plex have been battling it out since its first install. It fills a drive, I clean it, it sees the new free space and snags it before anything else does. Definitely make sure you removed the files, which your post makes it sound like you checked that already. But make sure they're gone from trash as well. You might want to try CCleaner too, to see if that might grab it back.

Another thing you can try is to check the recycling folders manually. They're hidden. Open an Explorer Window (My Computer) and open C:. Then select Organize in the top left, and select Folder and Search Options. Go to the View tab on the window that appears, and enable "Show hidden files, folders, and drives". Then click OK. After that, you should see a folder named $Recycle.Bin. Open it, and delete everything inside. After that, hide the hidden files again (so nothing gets accidentally deleted in the future)

 

[cjkuhlenbeck]

EDIT: Sorry, forgot to mention. Instead of opening C:, open the drive that originally had the files. Each drive has a $Recycle.Bin folder. It stores the files deleted from the specific drive they're on. So for example, if you delete something from C:/, then it goes to C:/$Recycle.Bin. If you delete something from F:/, then the files go to F:/$Recycle.Bin.

 

[kufloyd]

Thanks all for your replies.

It turns out that the moved files were somehow still being stored under 'temporary files'. So I had to go to C: in windows explorer, click on 'disk cleanup' and delete all temporary files - after that, the C: size was reflecting correctly. I guess it's something about how Photoshop Elements moves files...