What's using my drive space? NTFS external

[chasgl]

I have an external drive if I choose properties is says used space is 678
Gigabytes. If I go to windows explorer with Show hidden folders and files
selected, select all folders and files in the root directory (including the
recycle bin), and select properties then it says I am using 348 gigabtes.
How can I find out where the rest of the space went and reclaim it ?
Thanks,
Chas

 

[chasgl]

Oh yes, hide protected system files is also not checked, so that's not it.
Thanks again,
Chas

 

[Gary Brandenburg]

Oh yes, hide protected system files is also not checked, so that's not it.
Thanks again,
Chas

You have hidden files and folders *and* protected system files on an
EXTERNAL drive?
Do you also have system restore monitoring this drive?

~Gary

 

[chasgl]

I was just trying to indicate I had eliminated two possibilities that it was
hidden or system files that I wasn't seeing. System restore is not active on
the external drives.
Thanks,
Chas

 

[Tim Slattery]

I have an external drive if I choose properties is says used space is 678
Gigabytes. If I go to windows explorer with Show hidden folders and files
selected, select all folders and files in the root directory (including the
recycle bin), and select properties then it says I am using 348 gigabtes.
How can I find out where the rest of the space went and reclaim it ?

The usual reason for this kind of thing is slack space. The file
system allocates chunks of disk space called "clusters" to files.
Generally a file will fill some number of clusters entirely, then part
of another one. So the rest of the space in that last cluster cannot
be used. If you have a lot of small files on a disk (small in this
case meaning smaller than a cluster), then the amount of slack space
relative to actual data can be quite high, since none of these small
files will fill an entire cluster.

Another, more remote, possibility, if your disk uses the NTFS file
system is alternate data streams. The normal used/free space report
won't see these things at all. This is a possibility but it's not very
likely. See http://members.cox.net/slatteryt/Streams.html for
information and a way to see how many of these exist on your drive.

 

[andy]

Use this program:
<http://www.david-taylor.myby.co.uk/software/disk.html#ShowMan>.

 

[chasgl]

Thanks its mostly big files. I tried LADS. It only showed a few bytes but
it had a swarm of errors mostly on windows backup sets.

 

[chasgl]

BINGO> Thanks, I went ahead and deleted the backup set . Even thought it
said it was 15 gigs I got over 300 gigs back. The errors from LADS were the
clue.
Chas