Backup drive shows too much used space

[Rick]

I do weekly full backups to an 300 GB external USB hard
drive with the built-in Windows Vista backup program.
On my entre C: drive I've only used about 100 GB, and
this of course includes both the OS, apps, and user data
files.

I just looked at the J: backup drive in Windows Explorer
and the pie chart of Properties is showing the Used
Space as 200 GB which really surprises me. I don't get
this. On this backup drive there's only a single parent
folder called RICK. The Properties of this folder shows
only 21 GB of files. Yet Properties of the drive itself
shows a pie chart of 200 GB Used Space.

Something is taking up a lot of extra space on the
backup drive and I'm not sure what it is.

I did a Disk Cleanup which found a Recycle Bin that
hadn't been emptied out, but that only released about 15
GB.

If this is any clue: before doing each full backup I
manually delete the previous week's backup from the hard
drive.

Any thoughts? Thanks for any help.

 

[Richard Urban]

I do weekly full backups to an 300 GB external USB hard
drive with the built-in Windows Vista backup program.
On my entre C: drive I've only used about 100 GB, and
this of course includes both the OS, apps, and user data
files.

I just looked at the J: backup drive in Windows Explorer
and the pie chart of Properties is showing the Used
Space as 200 GB which really surprises me. I don't get
this. On this backup drive there's only a single parent
folder called RICK. The Properties of this folder shows
only 21 GB of files. Yet Properties of the drive itself
shows a pie chart of 200 GB Used Space.

Something is taking up a lot of extra space on the
backup drive and I'm not sure what it is.

I did a Disk Cleanup which found a Recycle Bin that
hadn't been emptied out, but that only released about 15
GB.

If this is any clue: before doing each full backup I
manually delete the previous week's backup from the hard
drive.

Any thoughts? Thanks for any help.

What Norton product are you using?

 

[Rick]

Hi -- I'm not using any Norton product. Never have.
Why?

 

[Andrew Murray]

Some Norton products do, or used to have this "Protected Recycle Bin" thing,
which is hidden, and could be the cause of the reduced disk space you're
seeing.

I no longer use Norton products but I know that some years ago their
"SystemWorks" type suites used this protected recycle bin thing, perhaps
their latest security products still do.

 

[Rick]

Thanks -- no, I've never used Norton products.

Any other thoughts about what could be hogging disk
space invisibly?