Windows not showing files moved to external drive.

[mikesilve]

I decided to move of my music files onto one external hard drive. The drive (FAT32) has a capacity of 372 Gb and properties show 58.9 Gb has been used.

However I can only see 5Gb of files - the others are taking up the disk space but I just can't see them. I've tried searching, refreshing, etc. Any ideas on how I can gain access to the files??

Thanks in advance

 

[FliGi7]

Try taking ownership of the drive:

http://www.caspianit.co.uk/how-to-take-ownership-of-a-drive-folder-or-file-in-windows-7/

 

[mikesilve]

Thanks FliGi7

I get the message :

ERROR:File ownership cannot be applied on insecure file systems; there is no support for ACLs.

Mike

 

[FliGi7]

Oh, you're right! It's a FAT32 file system. I forgot about that. Do you have your system configured to show hidden files and folders?

 

[mikesilve]

Yes it's set to show hidden files, folders and drives.

Mike

 

[FliGi7]

Are you an administrator on the computer?

When you right click on the drive in My Computer and go to the Security Tab, is your username in the list? If not, try adding it.

 

[mikesilve]

Hi. I don't have a security tab. My "I:" drive options are General, Tools, Hardware, Sharing, Readyboost, Previous Version and Customize. My other NTFS external drives have a security tab but not, it seems this FAT32 drive.

 

[FliGi7]

Yea, didn't think it would, but wanted to make sure. There aren't really any security controls in a FAT32 system, so the theory of not having ownership or access to them doesn't apply here. Due to this, you should be able to see everything on the drive.

How did you copy the files over to it?

 

[mikesilve]

Hi. Highlighted folders in the FROM folder, dragged to the TO drive with right mouse held down and chose "Move here" from pop up menu. Mike

 

[FliGi7]

Can you view them from the command line via the "dir" command?

 

[mikesilve]

Hi. The Dir command only shows the files I can see in Windows. The properties states space used is 58.9 Gb, free space is 313Gb, capacity is 372GB. Yet the files I can highlight add up to 4.77GB.

 

[FliGi7]

I'm at a loss as to why that's happening. I would download and run WinDirStat to see if it can find what is taking up the space on there.

WinDirStat - Windows Directory Statistics

 

[mikesilve]

Thanks. WinDirStat just shows 4.8GB is being used - the same files and folders I can see in Windows. I think I'll just have to put this down to experience and call it a day. Thanks for your help anyway.

 

[FliGi7]

I understand the frustration, as I'm experiencing the same trying to figure out what is actually going on here. I'm just curious as to why it's happening now.

Can you see other files if they're copied over? Is it only your music directory that is disappearing?

 

[mikesilve]

Not to worry. The Music files had some video files and jpegs as well. I decided just to copy off the 4.8Gb that I could see and reformat the drive. When I did this Windows reported that some files could not be copied as they were corrupt (??). I then deleted the souce files which went into the Recycle Bin. When I emptyed the Recycle Bin Windows reported it was recycling over 50GB of files (????). Thanks for your help anyway it is much appreciated.Mike

 

[FliGi7]

Yea, it's probably best to just reformat as NTFS. Sorry we couldn't figure it out.

 

[InstantSesame]

The maximum number of clusters FAT 32 can handle for a partition is 65536. Now for a 372GB drive each cluster should be 8MB in size. And no matter how small they are, each of your file will occupy ONE cluster. Even if many of your files is only, say, 3MB, each will occupy 8MB. That's the reason behind.

Right-click a folder -> Properties
You will see two values for size, one is the actual size of all the files, the other is the size on disk. You will see the big difference.

The fix? NTFS!