how do i recover lost external hard drive space?

Question

after transferring data from a 40g internal hard drive to a 320g external drive which had almost 300g free space i was surprised that the reflected remaining space was about 27g and the total space of the once 320g was reduced to 46g. what is puzzling me is why is it reflecting 46g as total space instead of 320g? what ever happened

Answer 1

You may not have emptied your trash. When you delete a file it isn't removed, it goes to the trash can. When you empty your trash can (recycle bin for Windows) the computer forgets where the file is. The information isn't changed or lost.

Because of this the computer doesn't like to write over that used file space. So when you defragment the hard drive you clean out the broken links and disconnected files and create a uniform and organized file set.

Somehow your external hard drive got filled with information. Either you didn't clean it out or it just filled up with trash. Warning there are viruses that do this.

Reformat your internal drive and transfer the files from the external drive back to the internal drive. When that happens the files will be put in a good order creating a compact file system, but make sure the recycle bin has been emptied first.

Then you can format that external hard drive and get rid of all the garbage on it.

Another thing about hard drives they don't all have the same listed memory space as it says on the box. Minor differences and imperfections in the manufacturing process can make a subtle change. Your hard drive should have at least 40 gig, but it is possible that it can hold 46 g, the different memory space on each drive can vary a little, but it will at least have the listed rating and usually a bit more.

Answer 2

Get a Mac.