Can't get full capacity from HDD

  • Thread starter Thread starter Lee Beck
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Lee Beck

I don't know whether this is a hardware or a software
problem. I'm posting it here (MS Applications) because
I'm thinking that it may have something to do with either
the Windows OS or with Windows Explorer (WE). This is an
ongoing problem and any help or reference to another site
for assistance will be appreciated.

My HDD (Maxtor 120GB) does not report all the free space
that it has. The space not reported is actually not
available, which severely diminishes the capacity of the
drive. At present, if I right-click on the drive and
select "Properties" it shows about 109GB taken and 14GB
available. If I go to the right-hand pane of WE. "Select
all", and look at "Properties" it reports only 74GB total
for all files/folders on the drive. I'm showing all
hidden files. I need about 26GB to "render" a large video
project, and need the 74GB of raw data for the project, so
further deleting files from the drive is not an option
without redoing the project.

This happened about 3 months ago (the drive is about 6
months old) and I couldn't figure out how to get the space
back without reformatting the drive (which I did). The
drive then appeared to operate okay until I started
placing/removing these very large files on it. Actually,
I had the drive filled to about 100 GB and deleted/moved
some large files in order th get the required 26GB free
space needed. The drive just doesn't appear to return all
of the capacity. I've done a "disk cleanup" and emptied
the recycle bin.

I've defragmented the drive and used Norton Disk Doctor to
try to diagnose the problem. All of the Windows and
Norton utilities report that the capacity is indeed not
available. I just can't find out where the files are to
clean then off the disk.

I've also contacted Maxtor and they sent me some HDD
diagnostic utilities that say that the drive is operating
normally.

Will reinstalling Windows help? Will I lose my large
video project (about 40 hours of work) if I reinstall
Windows (if needed)? I hate to buy a redundant 120GB
drive just to save the info on the drive in question. Is
there software that can help to diagnose the problem and
possibly clean the "unused" space so that it's available?

Any help or advice is appreciated. I hope that I've given
enough information for you to see that this is not an
elementary problem (e.g., not files left in recycle bin).
I can present screen captures or any other information if
it will be helpful.
 
You don't mention having looked in the Disk Management applet
(CtlPanel,AdminTools)...is there a chance the unusable space is simply
not partitioned? Has W2k ever actually seen the entire drive? Is the
whole drive one big partition?
 
Lee --
- So the drive (~120MB) is fully partitioned and Disk Mgt shows no
unallocated space...you MUST have a bunch of hidden stuff on that drive.
- Do you have WExplorer set to display all types of files, including
hidden? Set all attributes off on any hiddens you don't recognize on
that drive (this could take some time).
- Do you have some other utility installed that might be creating hidden
recovery files, somewhat like Recycle Bin? There are several 3rd party
utility suites in common use that can be set to do this as a form of
disaster or error-recovery. They'll even compress such files, making
diagnosis a trifle more difficult; the actual and expected remaining
space will differ. You might have forgotten it's there, which is a
common problem with such - at least for me. :-)
- I seem to recall a post recently that pointed to a MS knowledgebase
article discussing a subject like "Windows reports incorrect drive space
available." Perhaps with some ingenuity with search arguments you can
find it there or in one of the W2k newsgroups.
- Also, after one of these deletions followed by a shutdown /poweroff /
cold restart, does the correct amount of remaining disk space appear?

Holding on with my fingernails...good luck.
 
It's not a hidden files issue. I've tried a number of
diagnostics and at least now I think I've narrowed it down
to a software issue.

I bought a new WD 120GB drive to replace a 10GB in my
system. Now the WD is experiencing the same problems that
the Maxtor is. Neither the 10 or a 30GB HDD in the same
system have the problem. It appears to just be the large
drives.

To make matters more confusing, after downloading about
30GB of data from the Maxtor to the WD, I got 60GB of
capacity back (on the Maxtor).

I thought (from your hints) that maybe my GoBack software
was the culprit. I uninstalled it but that didn't help.

The only ting that I know to do from here is to reinstall
Windows. This one really has me stumped. Thanks for your
input.
 
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