can't figure out whats going on with my storage

i have a storage partition with 931gb. i'm using 217gb. windows says i have 310gb free. i'm confused.

recycle bin is empty. i did disk cleanup and optimize drive.

smoothnobody said:

i have a storage partition with 931gb. i'm using 217gb. windows says i have 310gb free. i'm confused.

recycle bin is empty. i did disk cleanup and optimize drive.

Click to expand...

Please post a screenshot of Disk Management.

something else strange just happened. i right clicked the partition and found error checking. i ran that and it said no errors found. but my available storage went from 310gb to 464gb.

smoothnobody said:

something else strange just happened. i right clicked the partition and found error checking. i ran that and it said no errors found. but my available storage went from 310gb to 464gb.

Click to expand...

Get Minitool Partition Wizard (free), install it and post a screenshot, plese.

here is a screenshot showing the size of everything on this partition. the only thing i can think might be throwing me off is the windows system image. but i added up the size off all my folders and it's 183gb. when i go in to the system image folder i can see the system image and it says 34gb so 217gb used adds up.

smoothnobody said:

here is a screenshot showing the size of everything on this partition. the only thing i can think might be throwing me off is the windows system image. but i added up the size off all my folders and it's 183gb. when i go in to the system image folder i can see the system image and it says 34gb so 217gb used adds up.

Click to expand...

It says there's 466GB of data on there, and 50% free?
Where are you seeing only 217GB used?


You need to go into File Explorer, then right click the D: drive and choose: Properties
What does THAT say for used space?

screenshot in last post. it didn't post initially cause it was too large.

smoothnobody said:

screenshot in last post. it didn't post initially cause it was too large.

Click to expand...

In that 2nd screen shot, that's just the Downloads folder?

I want to know the size of the used space on Storage (D:), in File Explorer.
According to Minitool...the used space on Storage (D:) is 466GB, not 217GB.

thats every folder. you can see them all highlighted. also says 7 items selected at bottom.

OK... maybe I'm not understanding the question.
Or we don't have a picture that explains the question?

This is what I see on Minitool... it all looks fine.





All the Used and Unused columns, add up to the Capacity column. Which is as it should be.

931gb - 217gb should = 714gb unused

smoothnobody said:

931gb - 217gb should be 714gb unused

Click to expand...

On your screenshot of Minitool Partition Wizard... there is NO 217GB showing. So it doesn't exist.
So, on your Storage (D:) drive, you are not looking at all the used space on that partition.
You are only looking at what looks like a Downloads folder on the D: partition.

In the title bar of your 2nd pic in post #5, it should say Storage (D:) ....NOT Downloads

Right click on Storage D, select Properties and see what that says. Should look something like this:

Ok, I see the problem... :)

In this pic, you need to right click on the item in the YELLOW box and choose: Properties.

For some reason, selecting ALL the items on the D: partition and right clicking on it... is only showing you the Downloads folder.





In this pic, it LOOKS like you have everything on D: "selected".
But the Title bar on the Properties sheet shows that you're only "seeing" the size of the Downloads folder.

If you right click Storage (D:) in the YELLOW box, the size will be 466.71GB



Why the "select all" or whatever, on the left side isn't working... I don't know.

Nice catch @Ghot

that screenshot is for every folder on this partition. it says 7 items and 7 items selected at the bottom.

the downloads folder is only 128gb. screenshot attached.

when i right click the drive itself and go to properties it says the same thing disk management says.

the problem/confusion is this. why do all the folders add up to 217gb, but windows is reporting 466gb being used.

why did windows say 310gb available, then 464gb after i run error check?

something isn't right.

Random thought, just mentioning it because... might not be relevant to your question.

The folder I can see called WindowsImageBackup is a disk image created by Windows own backup/restore utility. Those report as 0Gb in size even when the contents inside are many Gb in size.

I'm on Windows 10 at the moment, but when I select all the folders and files on a partition...
they ALL show up in the used space amount.

i thought the system image might be the problem, but it only shows 0gb until you give permission and go in to the folder. after you do that it shows the size.

smoothnobody said:

that screenshot is for every folder on this partition. it says 7 items and 7 items selected at the bottom.

the downloads folder is only 128gb. screenshot attached.

when i right click the drive itself and go to properties it says the same thing disk management says.

the problem/confusion is this. why do all the folders add up to 217gb, but windows is reporting 466gb being used.

why did windows say 310gb available, then 464gb after i run error check?

something isn't right.

Click to expand...

Yes, I see you have a problem... I would still like to see the properties sheet for the D: partition.
RIGHT click the D: drive (in the YELLOW box), and choose Properties.

Please post a screenshot of that.





I NEED to see that pic, to find where the problem lies.
We KNOW that Minitool Partition Wizard, sees things correctly.

For some reason File Explorer is having trouble with that.