HDD space dissapered after reformating.

[joho128]

Hey guys, so i recently did a fresh install of windows 7 ultimate 64 Bit on my system and it seemed to work well so after i installed some programs and downloaded some movies a message popped up that i was running out of disk space. It says i have 1 GB of free space but my hard drive is 500 GB big, i don't have any of the drive partitioned so its only on the one, and when i open up the control panel there are only like 30 gigs worth of stuff on it. What happened to all the space? Please help.

 

[Dr_JRE]

Right click on Computer -> Manage -> Disk Management -> your data is likely in here. if you see "unallocated space", right click on your your windows partition and resize it to fill the drive.

If there is a second partition thats not "unallocated", right click -> delete -> right click on windows partition and extend it to fill the drive.


if neither of those apply, let us know what you see there in disk management.

 

[fzabkar]

What capacity is the drive reporting to BIOS? Is it reporting 32GB?

 

[joho128]

Right click on Computer -> Manage -> Disk Management -> your data is likely in here. if you see "unallocated space", right click on your your windows partition and resize it to fill the drive.

If there is a second partition thats not "unallocated", right click -> delete -> right click on windows partition and extend it to fill the drive.


if neither of those apply, let us know what you see there in disk management.

Okay so it seems to be using it properly like it is still just saying that like 465 gigs are being used, but by nothing it would seem. Here is a screen shot http://i.imgur.com/IielK.png?1

 

[joho128]

What capacity is the drive reporting to BIOS? Is it reporting 32GB?

The Bios is reporting it to be 500 GB big.

 

[photonboy]

Dr_JRE should be right.
It's likely that your Windows partition isn't using the entire drive and that most of it is hidden (unallocated).

If you do it correctly, you should have a SINGLE partition showing a little less than 500GB.

If you're still stumped I'll help.

 

[photonboy]

*update:
Sorry about missing your post.

So your drive appears formatted correctly.

Click "Computer" -> "properties" for the drive and see how much FREE and USED space it shows.

 

[raytseng]

rightclick on c:\ drive properties, take a screenshot for used, free, capacity. take a screenshot

then also open c:\ drive. select all files/folders and do properties. what does it say for size there (take a screenshot).

 

[joho128]

*update:
Sorry about missing your post.

So your drive appears formatted correctly.

Click "Computer" -> "properties" for the drive and see how much FREE and USED space it shows.

http://imgur.com/aLlyI there is an image of what that says so it is telling me that i am using all the space but with nothing it would seem .

 

[joho128]

rightclick on c:\ drive properties, take a screenshot for used, free, capacity. take a screenshot

then also open c:\ drive. select all files/folders and do properties. what does it say for size there (take a screenshot).

This is a screen shot of all the free space and capacity and usage http://imgur.com/aLlyI BUT when i highlight all the files in my C drive and go to properties the amount that is in there continually goes up like i waited and it went as high as 50 gigs and kept going up and up, and i know for a fact that i do not have 50 gigs of stuff on my harddrive already.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

i know for a fact that i do not have 50 gigs of stuff on my harddrive already.

After a fresh install of Windows 7-64 Professional on a 128 GB partition and all programs and data on other partitions, this lappie's C:\Drive has 48GB of files on it.....again that is just OS, drivers and "common files".

 

[joho128]

i know for a fact that i do not have 50 gigs of stuff on my harddrive already.

After a fresh install of Windows 7-64 Professional on a 128 GB partition and all programs and data on other partitions, this lappie's C:\Drive has 48GB of files on it.....again that is just OS, drivers and "common files".

Alright, well i guess what i should say is that there is definitively not 480 gigs of stuff on there but its saying there is and acting like there is.

 

[Dr_JRE]

WinDirStat!

This should shed some light on whats going on.

http://windirstat.info/

 

[joho128]

WinDirStat!

This should shed some light on whats going on.

http://windirstat.info/

Alright guys, thanks a lot for your help! This is what happend, my harddrive for whatever reason saved folder called windows old, and those are folders filled with all the old videos music and movies and everything else from the old partition. This is particularly strange because i have done around 2 reformats on this harddrive and i guess it has been saving up each of them, and i dont understand why, i thought it was supposed to delete the whole thing, i am still confused but it has been resolved, special thanks to DR_JRE for the link that is what helped me realize what it was.

 

[joho128]

Best answer selected by joho128.

 

[Dr_JRE]

When you install windows you are selecting repair, and not performaing a clean install (no format is performed).

If you are installing from an OEM recovery disk, it likely does this automatically.

When you install, it is always best to delete the partition and set a new one up that is a few MB smaller so it forces a new partition table and format. Always do this and a clean install and your computers will be happy. (Next time you format after, you can make the partition the full size, but whats a couple megs? You just want to stagger the data so it doesn't get lazy and just try and re-use what's already there.)