Author Topic: External hard drive - problem reading unused space SOLVED (Read 16142 times)

barryman · « **on:** September 30, 2014, 02:05:42 am »

External hard drive - unused space problem

I have a Seagate GoFlex 250 gb ext. hard drive. I have backed up about 140 gb of data onto it but it currently shows only 23 gb of unused space remaining!! Even allowing for the true storage being about 232gb, that cannot be correct.
I have tried defragging the drive, have run "chkdsk" on it but still says 23 gb remaining. I really do not want to reformat the whole thing so what can I do.
Also, I looked with Windows Disk Management (see attached screenshot) and it shows the F drive to be healthy (active, primary partition etc). The only thing is that it does not pick up whether it is NTFS or FAT but I have had it for over two years and it's never been a problem backing up to it.
What can I do to check or restore unused space - avoiding reformatting if at all possible

Boggin · « **Reply #1 on:** September 30, 2014, 02:25:09 am »

I'm not sure how you have used chkdsk on it but I have a Seagate 500GB external HDD and in an elevated cmd prompt, I type f: which changes the directory and then enter chkdsk which identifies it as NTFS before going onto scan it in read-only mode.

Edit
Not having to ever deal with this issue, a Google found for this instance that it was a Permissions issue which resolved for the OP in http://superuser.com/questions/586534/windows-explorer-displaying-wrong-free-space but the chkdsk read-only mode will show how much has been used and what is still available.

Shane · « **Reply #2 on:** September 30, 2014, 02:56:49 pm »

It is very odd that it shows the drive as having 100% free in the screen shot and it doesnt show if it is ntfs or not.

The MBR (Master Boot Record) is suppose to report the partition sizes and types.

I have had users who reported that a drive show TBs of data in use on a 250 GB hard drive (an insane number that the drive in no way could hold), what was wrong was the file system was messed up, after then ran chkdsk on the drive and told it to fix anything it finds then everything started reporting properly.

chkdsk f: /f

will have chkdsk fix any problems and only check the file system and such.

chkdsk f: /r

will do all of the same but also two extra steps where it testes all the data and sectors on the drive as well.

I would do the chkdsk f: /r and see what it reports or if it fixes it

Shane

Boggin · « **Reply #3 on:** September 30, 2014, 04:32:40 pm »

Just wondering if refreshing its driver by uninstalling it in Device Manager then either a reboot or Action/Scan for hardware changes would help Windows to recognize it properly ?

When I try anything like this, I always create a restore point first.

Shane · « **Reply #4 on:** September 30, 2014, 04:57:41 pm »

There are times where when I plug in my external drive windows will say it is unrecognized and ask to format it, I say no, unplug the drive and plug it back in and then it is fine. Windows tried to read the drive info before it was ready, doesnt happen all the time but it does happen.

Shane

barryman · « **Reply #5 on:** October 01, 2014, 01:10:02 am »

Well, I ran the full chkdsk from Command prompt. Among all the info at the end, these figures came up

244 gb total disk space
0 Bad sectors on disk
53 gb in use by system
23 gb available on disk (this figure should be about 80 - 90 gb available!)
61 gb total allocation on disk
6 gb allocated units available on disk

So, I'm no further on to reclaiming my disk space. To summarise Windows says I have used 210 gb total on drive. I reckon it's only 140 gb used.
Somebody posted about reinstalling the driver. I don't have a driver, ony a file called Seagate Launcher which is a Seagate setup file that is on the ext hard drive at the moment. Should I use that??

Or, any other suggestions - this is baffling me. (I defragged again but no difference)
Attached photo shows screenshot of scan using program WinDirStat. Any clues there??

Since posting I used a Drive Wiper to clean the free space on drive but it also only found 23 gb to wipe. I know there's more space on the drive!!!! So far both Windows and two other programs have only recognised 23gb available. So, what next???

Thanks for your input.

Boggin · « **Reply #6 on:** October 01, 2014, 01:29:26 am »

Windows supplies the driver which is what installs when you first plug an external HDD in which is why I suggested uninstalling it so that it would install afresh.

barryman · « **Reply #7 on:** October 01, 2014, 02:08:06 am »

Re uninstalling driver, the thing is that Windows DOES recognise the ext drive plus all the data on it. It's just the available space that's the problem. Is there a risk in uninstalling the driver??

jraju · « **Reply #8 on:** October 01, 2014, 05:59:39 am »

Hi, barryman,
Is there any shadow storage problems in your drive?. if that is the case, then try this link for knowing the problem and solution. Hope that this helps
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/166102-shadow-copies-delete.html

barryman · « **Reply #9 on:** October 01, 2014, 08:03:24 am »

Jraju - you are indeed a genius!! I followed the links re Shadow Copies, took my chances deleting what the program found and, YES. My external drive now shows 104 gb of available space. All that space must have been used by shadow copies. Now they are gone.

This is indeed an answer that would probably help most people who have the same problem with ext. drives. All that backing up must make immense amounts of shadow copies.

Thanks again to you and all those who replied to my question. You really helped me.

Barry

Boggin · « **Reply #10 on:** October 01, 2014, 08:39:06 am »

Nice one ! jraju

Shane · « **Reply #11 on:** October 01, 2014, 05:15:11 pm »

Good job jraju

I just got back from working on customers machines all day. I was going to have you make sure system restore wasn't set on the the drive and to check the volume shadow copies as well. Windows has a habit of using space on the drive and not showing it anywhere lol. You may still want to go check the system restore properties and see if it is enabled for that drive.

Normally most of it is kept in the system volume information folder, but you dont normally have access into that folder and so it will normally show 0 kb in size when actually it is much larger.

From what I read the shadow copies are in the same folder as well. The program you used didnt have access to that folder and so never told you the actual size and is why you didnt see it before.

So far I know shadow copies and system restore points are kept in that folder, i think a few more things are as well but I cant remember lol

Shane

barryman · « **Reply #12 on:** October 02, 2014, 12:55:31 am »

Thanks Shane for all your help. I have adjusted my System restore settings and, from now on, will know what to do to delete them from ext hard drive.

jraju · « **Reply #13 on:** October 02, 2014, 04:30:52 am »

Hi, Shane
and Hi Boggins
Thanks.