Deleted Files on external HDD still takes up space!!!

[rcdcnls]

I have a 1 TB Western Digital HDD but when I tried to delete a 12GB video files to free up space because I only have less than 3GB left it still did not add additional 12GB of free space. It actually did not changed at all it still remained 3GB free space.

I also emptied my recycle bin. Also checked the file size of my entire files on my drive via properties and it only shows 700GB+ which means I should have 250GB+ of free space but I only got 3GB left.

UPDATE:

Fixed It! Downloaded TreeSize Free Software. Found out that I have a $RECYCLE.BIN folder in my external drive which has 200GB + worth of files.
I just deleted the contents of that folder and voila got my extra space!
By the way the $RECYCLE.BIN is hidden by default so make sure to uncheck these in change folder and search options in windows:

Hide empty drives
Hide extensions for known file types
Hide folder merge conflicts
Hide protected operating system files

and check Show hidden files, folders and drives.

 

[Phillip Corcoran]

Well done, I had the same puzzle a few weeks ago so I did some detective work and found that hidden folder. You would think that Windows would automatically empty it wouldn't you? Thanks Microsoft.