Internal HD Drive (D) shows nearly half full in Properties & (My) Computer but empty in Windows Explorer!

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tomshardwareda

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Sep 29, 2010
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well, here's the problem, repeating the long title above, with some tweaks:

my desktop computer's Internal HD Drive, the D: drive, used mainly as back up and storage, shows nearly half full in Properties and (My) Computer but shows empty in Windows Explorer when I open it as a folder!

I used to have lots of data (mostly photos) on it, which I moved to a larger external drive recently, hoping to reformat this D: drive and uses it as drive C:'s backup, but now that i see there are apparently lots of 'hidden' stuff on it, I'm wondering what they could be? can I go ahead and reformat this drive?

everything else works perfectly fine and I haven't had unsolvable issues with this system so far as i have built it myself in 2011, or 2012 ...

there's an image made up of several screenshots of the Properties and the folder windows but couldn't find a way to attach it in here.

my computer's spx:

Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit
Core i-7 950 3.06GHz CPU
Asus Sabertooth X58 mobo
24GB (6x4GB) Corsiar RAM
500GB Seagate 7200RPM (C: main, boot up drive)
500GB WD 7200RPM (D: the one in debate now!)
PNY Quadra 600 GPU
BD-RE disc drive
DVD RW disc drive
lots of peripherals, mostly external storage disk drives and USB hubs etc
 
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SchizTech

SchizTech

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Jan 16, 2011
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If you've moved it to the recycle bin but not cleared the recycle bin it could also show up that way. Go into the recycle bin to check if your stuff is there, and if you clear it the space may open on D:. Either way as long as your stuff is backed up it should be fine to format it.
 
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tomshardwareda

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Sep 29, 2010
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hi SchizTech

thanks for the replies

the WinDirStat does work (have used it in the past) and did work now too
but nothing happened:
it does show me some stuff there in drive D, but it's a very small file:
Desktop.ini 129 bytes
not the 193+GB 'thing' that's still left there according to Properties and Computer! :)

also, the hidden files / folders are always set to be visible in Explorer on my system:
i am the admin / only user of my own entire system and prefer to see such items when working with my computer ...

i have backed up all visible folders (images mostly) to the external drive already, but I'm just curious what this / these could be still there?

if they are system read/write attempts that is typical of Windows to steal empty space from all available drives to do so, then it's ok for me to format the drive, but I'm wondering what if at some point i have made a mistake and made some files 'hidden' although I'm sure i shouldn't have done that ...
in fact, if i had done so, then when checking to set them back to visible now i should be able to see them again, right?

what if the system has done that and hid some of MY files?
well, Windows is the most unreliable OS out there after all and I've never fully trusted it anyway!

and if these are system's own read/write stuff, then i'm wondering if i have a similar issue on my other storage drives too: part of them being written by the system for its own resource-hungry purposes!
i have seen such system-written folders on one of my external drives in the past ...

anyway, thanks again and let's see what happens if someone comes up with other ideas ...

cheers!
 
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tomshardwareda

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Sep 29, 2010
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problem solved! (so far at least, anyway!)

the 194GB used space was all to do with two items:

- hidden system read/right files (the biggest part)
- some Recycle Bin related files (very little)

I managed to see those files after changing folder setting to show the hidden system files too and there they were: a number of say 10 or more system-write files, each well above several GBs in size and one of them apparently more than 10 or maybe 100 GB in size!

didn't snap a screengrab image, silly me, but doesn't matter, they're no longer there and I reformatted the drive anyway and it's working quite fine right now ...

this must have happened when I had set this drive to be system's scratch drive in the past ... then I changed it of course, but the files were still there ... forgot to check the date on the last file written there to find out if the system's been still using it despite my changing the procedure ... but if that's still the case, then i'll be able to find out soon ...

so far so good! :)
 
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