Missing free hard disk space?

[knight0]

I'm having a strange problem. It appears that I have free hard disk space, but Windows XP can't find them?

When I look under My Computer, it states I have 3.24 GB of free space and 93.1 GB of total size. But when I select all the files in my hard drive and click Properties, they only add up to 83.1 GB of size on disk. That means I should have about 10 GB of free space, not 3.24 GB. Any ideas why this is happening.

BTW, I have it set to show all files in my folder options. Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

[Inferno]

Do you maybe have Norton Protected Recycle Bin installed, or any software of that kind? It usually doesn’t erase all the files when you empty the Recycle Bin. Or maybe System Restore uses the rest of the space, try clearing some restore points…

--- <i>Part of the price you must pay for any knowledge is to discover it for yourself.</i> ---

 

[rubikian]

Showing all files doesn't mean that it really shows all the system files as well. Try going back to the folder option view tab and scroll down to find the "hide protected operating system files". Uncheck that one. You'll see something like system volume information folder on your drive. That's the restore folder for winXP and it might be the culprit of holding your storage space.

 

[knight0]

Thanks guys. System Restore was in fact where the missing disk space was hiding. I deleted all the restore points and now I only have about 500MB I can't find. A lot better than 7GB.

Is there any reason to use System Restore? I've heard that it doesn't even work right.