External drive shows used space, but no files visible
I have an external drive with 4 partitions. One of the partitions is 400GB, but it shows as 63GB being used. There are no files visible on the drive, I have the view hidden files option checked, so they are not hidden by windows. I have 2 external drives, this is the 2nd one I installed, and the partition is the last one on the drive. It is the Seagate GoFlex 2 terabyte drive, and it asked me to back up my operating system, but i canceled it, so I cant believe that it would have been able to back up 63GB in that short amount of time that it attempted to do the backup. What I need to know is if it is safe to reformat the drive to recover that space. I just wanted to be sure there would be no critical files windows would have put there (I have a total of 13 partitions on 3 drives - 2 of them external drives), so i cant image that windows would have put any data there. Is it safe to format that drive, or is it safer to delete the volume and recreate it? I can do it via the computer management screen.
Thanks
Thanks
AriMc
Try running chkdsk for the drive (ie. if the drive is Z:, then "chkdsk Z:") from command prompt to find any lost files and a general inventory of what is in there.
ASKER
I can do that when I reboot and have some time, maybe tonight, but I never moved any files there. It says its in use, but not from any files that I may have put there.
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ASKER
Thanks for replies, I ran check disk, it found no errors so i will format it. I suspect it was data that the backup was trying to do before i stopped it, I am sure windows did not put the data there, because i have a lot of drives, and i accounted for the windows updates.
ASKER
Thank you
ASKER
The person who asked this question wasnt' me, MikeMCSD.
I rasied the points to 500 and want to accept and close the question
but it says I need to cancel this request first.
Thanks
I rasied the points to 500 and want to accept and close the question
but it says I need to cancel this request first.
Thanks
recycle bin - check files are not sitting there !