HDD Showing Double Amount of Data

[Pinoy.Boy]

I'm doing my weekly backup right now, and I noticed that windows explorer shows that my partitions are holding more data than it actually is.

Windows explorer shows that one of my drive has 161 GB free of 249 GB; so it says that I'm using 88 GB of storage. However, the sum of all the contents in that same partition is only 29 GB. What's going on? Is my external HDD broken or messed up?

Windows 7 Home Premium
Problem is on an external hdd that is used for data storage

 

[Elixer]

Most likely system files, like page file or hibernation file.
You can turn off the 'hide system files' "feature" if you want, and that should show all files.

 

[KingFatty]

Just to check, you are interchanging the word "drive" and "partition". Can we safely assume that your drive contains only one partition, and that one partition happens to fill the entire drive?

Maybe you have a bunch of hidden partitions on the drive, and they are taking up the space on the drive?

 

[Pinoy.Boy]

External hard drive with 500 GB capacity. Disk management is showing 4 partition, all of them have issue of what I described from the first post.

Since this external hard drive doesn't have an OS, I don't think it would be hibernation files. I checked "Show hidden files, folders, and drives" and then unchecked "hide protected operating systemfiles". After this, a folder called $Recycle showed and it is 6 GB in size.

So about 35 GB total for this specific partition, but it still says 88 GB total used.

 

[taltamir]

try unchecking "hide protected operating system files" AND "show hidden files, folders, and drives" and then do a recount.

External hard drive with 500 GB capacity. Disk management is showing 4 partition

why?

 

[Pinoy.Boy]

try unchecking "hide protected operating system files" AND "show hidden files, folders, and drives" and then do a recount.
why?

That's what I did. That's how I found out about the $recycle hidden folder. I partitioned my external HDD for organization purpose.

 

[KingFatty]

Can you take a snapshot of disk management for that drive? Connect the drive then open the management tool as follows:

Right-click on My Computer, select Manage. When the management tool opens, you then select Disk Management (under Storage)

You will then see all partitions, and how big each partition is.

Once we figure out the partition info, then we can dive in and explore each of the partitions.

So can I assume, that when you are talking about "this specific partition" you mean there is one partition on the drive you are concerned about, and the other partitions are OK? What is the name of that partition?

 

[corkyg]

Some of the NTFS files and zones do not show even if you uncheck "Hide System Files." Specifically, the MFT Reserved zone is defaulted at 12.5% of the drive's capacity. This is then not shown to you as available. This Microsoft note applies:

"To prevent the MFT from becoming fragmented, NTFS reserves 12.5 percent of volume by default for exclusive use of the MFT. This space, known as the MFT zone, is not used to store data unless the remainder of the volume becomes full."

 

[yefi]

So about 35 GB total for this specific partition, but it still says 88 GB total used.

If files or folders are not accessible in explorer because of permissions, then it won't count them towards the total size.

Second, system restore creates a special folder in the root of the drive that won't show even if you've unticked "hide protected operating system files". Run VSSADMIN LIST SHADOWSTORAGE from elevated command prompt to see how much space it takes up.

 

[corkyg]

Windows ... Problem is on an external hdd that is used for data storage

To the best of my knowledge, the hidden Restore partition is not placed on an external drive.

 

[Pinoy.Boy]

Thanks for the help everyone, I caved in and decided to format the partition in question and back up as normal. I searched around and it seems like there are different causes and ways to solve the issue, most of them are the same ones you guys have addressed. Sorry KingFatty, I can't screenshot anymore =( I looked up MFT reserve, it sounds possible.

 

[octoolguy]

Can I jump in here and ask a question that is sort of related? I have a Toshiba laptop with a 500 gig drive. When I do a disk management scan of the drive I see a partition with about 185 gig that is listed as unallocated space. My drive when I click properties shows as only a 320 gig with about 55% free. Why am I losing so much space to "unallocated"? I did a rescan drives but that didn't change anything. Thanks for any info you might offer.

Ray

 

[kbp]

Most laptops have a "restore" reserve partition the manufaturer places there to restore the drive to "factory" condition.

 

[Charlie98]

My inlaws bought an Acer desktop with a 500GB HDD, they had 250GB of it unallocated from the factory.

 

[octoolguy]

That seems like a lot to allocate to a recovery partition. I'm buying a 1T drive and will move everything to it. I made a set of recovery disks when I first got the laptop. I shouldn't need any recovery partition with those should I?

R