Bad HDD 100% Full After Check Disk - Cloned SSD also 100% Full - How to Fix?

[praetas]

I've seen questions about this from other people and the suggestion is to replace the HDD with a new drive and reinstall the OS. I've also seen where this was related to a large System Restore cache, which is not the case here.

I have a customer's Lenovo laptop with a 1TB HDD and about 120GB used space. The 1TB HDD had some bad sectors, causing a failed clone to a new 250GB SSD. After a check disk with repair to correct the bad sectors, the drive showed up completely full in Windows (30MB free out of 1TB) even though WINDIRSTAT confirmed there was only 120GB in use.

Because Windows 7 reports the 1TB HDD is full, I couldn't clone to the destined 250GB SSD - I had to clone to a new 1TB SSD. That clone succeeded and now the data is in a safe location. The brand-new 1TB SSD boots into Windows and you can load programs just fine, however the new 1TB SSD still reflects that the drive is full – so something must have carried over from the old 1TB HDD that's causing it to reflect the wrong usage amount.

When you try to connect the 1TB SSD to any computer it shows up as completely full as well.

Since I can boot into Windows and everything seems to work, and I am now working off a brand new 1TB SSD, I feel I should be able to correct the reported disk use, but cant figure out how to do it.

I need some guidance with this one, as I've never seen this before.

I appreciate in advance any suggestions to reinstall Windows, but this post is seeking expertise in repairing the issue as everything else appears to be intact.

Thanks!

 

[vesp3r]

Hi. Its common mistake to clone failing drive :/
Unfortunately when your drive is failing you would want to only copy files that you can access and if its OS drive you would also want a fresh OS install so you dont get any problems later with corrupted files. Im tempted to ask how much bad sectors did you have? I know when the bad sectors are too much that they cant be replaced by the reserved ones your hdd usable space will start to shrink to prevent you from using those sectors. I still recommend to copy the data you want to keep (not clone)
Remember to format your SSD (Quick format only) To do that you will need to boot from another source

 

[Haider14]

Hi. Its common mistake to clone failing drive :/
Unfortunately when your drive is failing you would want to only copy files that you can access and if its OS drive you would also want a fresh OS install so you dont get any problems later with corrupted files. Im tempted to ask how much bad sectors did you have? I know when the bad sectors are too much that they cant be replaced by the reserved ones your hdd usable space will start to shrink to prevent you from using those sectors. I still recommend to copy the data you want to keep (not clone)
Remember to format your SSD (Quick format only) To do that you will need to boot from another source

I have the same issue and tried every possible method that i found in the Internet but none of them is the solution. Each time i do one of these methods the issue back after i restart making my laptop which is Lenovo Y500 very slow. But i then try the same way here, just make sure your necessary files are safe and format the prymary partition C and install the older version of windows or reinstall windows 10 it depends what windows you have. Now my disk is 0% even if irestart windows and did not face error since 24 hours. I will update if the error back but still this is the only way i used to solve this issue after week of trying thanks to Allah. Be aware you have to format partition C or whatever partition you will install windows to otherwise it will not work because i tride reinstall windows from setting it won't work. Hope it will work for you. Best regards.