WIndows reports 21.8 GB of used space on a new empty drive

  • Thread starter Thread starter Shawn
  • Start date Start date
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Shawn

I recently experience a hard drive failure with a slave
drive. I replaced the drive, and split the new drive into
two partitions. After formatting both partitions, Windows
reports that the second partion is using 21.8GB; however,
the drive is empty, brand new, and freshly formatted.
Windows does not show anything on the drive; yet the
properties state that 21.8GB is being used.

Does anyone know why this might be happening?
 
How big is this drive? Do you have hidden and system files showing? Do
you mean total, the drive is missing 21.8 GB or does a new partition you
made say it already has 21.8 GB of data on it? Have you tried
reformatting that drive and seeing if that fixes it?
 
if system restore is enabled on the drive XP will hide a certain amount of
drive space for recovery files. turn system restore off on the drive if you
want to and the space should be reported correctly.
 
Thanks for your help, I will try disabling system restore,
but I don't understand why that would not show up as being
used space prior to installing the drive and 21.8GB seems
a little excessive for system restore.
 
The drive is 250GB. Hidden and system files are showing.
The new partition says it already has 21.8 GB of data on
it. The total capacity of the partition is 116 GB which
is correctly reported. Windows is showing 21.8 GB of data
occupying the drive or basically 19% used space 81% free.
I tried reformatting and rebooting both warm and cold.
 
First off, your 250 GB drive should appear as 238.41 GB in Windows.
System Restore can eat up to %12. That would be 238.61 * 12% = 28.61 GB.
It all depends on how many restore points you have. Also, don't forget
there is a System Paging File and a Hibernation File (if you enable it).
These two can eat up another 2-4 GB of space depending on the amount
of System RAM you have.

Try enabling hidden and system files from Folder Options in Control
Panel (on the View Tab).
 
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