Solved My External HDD is not Showing Correct free Space.

Bram00 · May 19, 2025

Since last week my External 6tb HDD keeps losing free space. I was at 4.9 TB used, having over 500gb free when suddenly Windows 11 said I had 0 Bytes free.

I ran every diagnostic possible, downloaded Treesize . analyzed my drive, ran a malware scan with Malwarbytes, did chkdsk...no errors. In Disk Management, my drive is healthy.

I decided to upload 500 GB of data to OneDrive then deleted it off my 6 TB drive. Woke up today 1 week later and I have 5 mb free? I had over 450gb last night. I've checked for hidden files and folders, can't find any.

No clue what's going on.

Any help would be great!!

gunrunnerjohn · May 19, 2025

Time for a reformat to see what happens. Do you get any errors if you disconnect the disk?

Bram00 · May 19, 2025

gunrunnerjohn said:
Time for a reformat to see what happens. Do you get any errors if you disconnect the disk?

No errors when disconnecting.

Will I lose all my data when Formatting? Trying to backup 5 tb is a huge job.

gunrunnerjohn · May 19, 2025

Of course you lose the data when formatting. Of course, I'd be backing up that data anyway if odd things are going on with the disk! Obviously, some process is changing the disk space available, hard to say what. Did you look in Task Manager and see if there's any process showing lots of disk activity? Is the activity light flashing all the time on this disk?

hsehestedt · May 19, 2025

Could you tell me what the drive is used for? Is it just for general storage or do you perform any disk image type backups to that drive?

My reason for asking is that I'll go down different paths depending upon the answer to that question.

Marcus Vinicus · May 19, 2025

Hi @Bram00

What did diskpart show?

antspants · May 19, 2025

Welcome.

Did Treesize show a Recycle Bin that isn’t getting emptied? Asking because I had that issue once before

Empty Recycle Bin in Windows 11

This tutorial will show you different ways to empty the Recycle Bin for specific or all drives for your account or all users in Windows 11. The Recycle Bin provides a safety net when deleting files or folders. When you delete any of these items from a drive, Windows places it in the Recycle Bin...

www.elevenforum.com

Alternatively:
Temporarily copy your data to another drive (can be a slow process)
Re-format the drive.
Copy your data back again

But you’re also saying that it’s erratic so I am not sure.

antspants · May 19, 2025

Here’s a generic response from Google, has some interesting information:

It's common for an external drive to show less free space than expected due to several factors, including differences in how storage is measured and formatted.

1. IEC vs. SI:

Manufacturers use SI (decimal) prefixes: They use 1024 bytes as 1 KB, 1 MB, 1 GB, and 1 TB.
Operating systems and software use IEC (binary) prefixes: They calculate storage in binary, with 1024 bytes as 1 KiB, 1 MiB, 1 GiB, and 1 TiB.
This difference results in a smaller reported capacity in your operating system compared to the advertised capacity.

2. Formatting and Partitioning:

MBR vs. GPT:
.
Older drives may be formatted using MBR, which has a capacity limit of 2TB. GPT is designed for larger drives.
Partitioning:
.
If the drive has multiple partitions, each partition will have a separate space allocation, and not all of the drive's space may be included in the single partition showing.
Formatting errors:
.
In rare cases, the drive might be incorrectly formatted, causing the reported capacity to be smaller than it should be.

3. System and Other Factors:

Hidden files:
Some operating systems may hide files or folders, like system files or temporary files, which can affect the reported free space.
Corruption:
Disk errors or corruption can also lead to a misrepresentation of available space.
Malware:
Malware can sometimes interfere with disk space reporting.
Bad sectors:
Bad sectors (errors) on the drive can cause the system to show a smaller capacity.

Troubleshooting and Solutions:

Restart your computer: A simple restart can sometimes resolve temporary issues.
Check Disk Management: Open Disk Management in Windows to verify the drive's capacity.
Connect to another computer: If the issue persists, try connecting the drive to another computer to see if it's a problem with your specific machine.
Scan for viruses and malware: Run a scan to check for malware that might be impacting the drive.
Run Disk Check Utility: Use the chkdsk command in Windows to check for and repair disk errors.
Check for hidden or system files: Make sure hidden files are visible in your operating system's file explorer.
Consider reformatting the drive: If none of the above steps work, formatting the drive as GPT (if supported) can resolve capacity issues.
Update the driver: Ensure you have the latest driver for the external drive.

Bram00 · May 19, 2025

hsehestedt said:
Could you tell me what the drive is used for? Is it just for general storage or do you perform any disk image type backups to that drive?

My reason for asking is that I'll go down different paths depending upon the answer to that question.

It's a drive used for videos, music. Had some games on it but checked if any were updated recently and no. Uninstalled steam from the drive as well.

Bram00 · May 19, 2025

Marcus Vinicus said:
Hi @Bram00

What did diskpart show?

Disk ### Status Size Free Dyn Gpt
-------- ------------- ------- ------- --- ---
Disk 0 Online 476 GB 0 B *
Disk 1 Online 5588 GB 0 B *
Disk 2 Online 1863 GB 1024 KB

My main C drive with system on it is 0, I have another 2 GB external.

glasskuter · May 19, 2025

Used correctly, Treesize should help you get to the bottom of what's using your storage. @hsehestedt is a good man to help you but before you do anything, I strongly suggest you backup your data no matter how long it takes you to do it.

I

Bram00 · May 19, 2025

glasskuter said:
Used correctly, Treesize should help you get to the bottom of what's using your storage. @hsehestedt is a good man to help you but before you do anything, I strongly suggest you backup your data no matter how long it takes you to do it.

I

Thanks I'll have to look into cheap backup.

gunrunnerjohn · May 19, 2025

If the drive if filling up on it's own with hidden files, something other than normal use is going on.

Bram00 · May 19, 2025

gunrunnerjohn said:
If the drive if filling up on it's own with hidden files, something other than normal use is going on.

The whole thing started when the drive wasn't properly indexing files. Perhaps I should have started with that. I couldn't sort by name, date , etc. So, I looked for a solution. I went to rebuild file index. I was in the middle of moving.

Anyways. On my PC it shows my drive twice. Both have the same size in properties. One is properly indexed and I can sort, the other still isn't. In drive management it only shows the drive once.

As you can tell, I'm out of my depth and feel rather dumb right now.

gunrunnerjohn · May 19, 2025

OK, so it sounds like it might be trying to index the drive and choking on the amount of files. That's starting to make more sense. I think I'd start by disabling Indexing on the drive and see if that makes it behave.

Exactly what are you using the Indexing for? If it's just for file name searches, there are better ways without all the overhead of Windows Search. I use Everything Search on my machines.

antspants · May 19, 2025

Bram00 said:
Anyways. On my PC it shows my drive twice

Add or Remove Duplicate Drives in Navigation Pane of File Explorer in Windows 11

This tutorial will show you how to add (show) or remove (hide) the drives showing twice in the navigation pane of File Explorer for all users in Windows 10 and Windows 11. Removable drives are shown as separate groups in the navigation pane of File Explorer by default in addition to being shown...

www.elevenforum.com

Bram00 · May 19, 2025

gunrunnerjohn said:
OK, so it sounds like it might be trying to index the drive and choking on the amount of files. That's starting to make more sense. I think I'd start by disabling Indexing on the drive and see if that makes it behave.

Exactly what are you using the Indexing for? If it's just for file name searches, there are better ways without all the overhead of Windows Search. I use Everything Search on my machines.

Thanks I disabled it and it was showing that indexing was still going on for my 6tb HDD. I'll see how my drive behaves now. I'm backing up 500gb now also.

Thanks for everyone's help.

gunrunnerjohn · May 20, 2025

I'm still curious where all the storage is going, normally the indexes are stored on the boot drive unless you've changed the location of the index folder.

hsehestedt · May 20, 2025

If you get a chance, open an elevated command prompt, run the command below, post the results here:

vssadmin list shadowstorage

gunrunnerjohn · May 20, 2025

hsehestedt said:
If you get a chance, open an elevated command prompt, run the command below, post the results here:

vssadmin list shadowstorage

Boy, I hope the reserved storage isn't what he's seeing! I thought that was mostly for servers?

From looking around, I see that Shadow Copy Storage can be unlimited, so maybe you're on to something! I think I'd set that to something reasonable like no more than 5% of the drive capacity.

I just checked my system, it has three 2TB drives. It only lists the usage for two of them. Since I never did anything to this setting, I assume that Windows made those decisions...

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