Missing Hard Drive Space?

Question

Hi, I've just noticed that I am missing about 5 Gb in hard drive space. I have checked my files in my compute,r and I am only using about 4 GB, yet in total I am using 9 GB so were is all the space gone. Can any one help. I ran a disk check and at the end it say that I have 16 KB in bad clusters, what are bad clusters do I need to fix them and if so how. Are the bad clusters the reason that I am missing hard drive space.
Thanks.

more info
My hard drive space is 34 Gb I am using Just under 9 Gb but I only see 4 Gb in use. I've defragmented and ran disk check.

Answer 1

If it has any bad sectors then you should be replacing it because it will eventually fail (if you aren't backing up your data already you'd better start). If the hard disk (or the computer it is in) is still under warranty then you should be able to get a new one for free.

16 KiB in bad sectors isn't going to cause that much hard disk space lost so I wouldn't expect it to be the reason.

I could be the incorrect reporting that most operating systems do (hard disk manufacturers use the correct Gigabyte is 1 billion (or 10^9) bytes for their drive capacities while the OS is using the incorrect 2^30 bytes that some people think is a Gigabyte (but which is actually a Gibibyte with symbol GiB)) though the information you've provided isn't completely consistent with that.

The other possibility (although for the amount you're losing a bit unlikely) is that it is the overhead from storing files in clusters of a fixed size.

Basically each file is stored in one or more clusters of a fixed size and files don't share clusters (usually the clusters are about 4 KiB on modern filesystems) so if you've got a lot of really small files they'll still take up at least one cluster and thus if you have lots of really small files that barely fill each cluster then there will appear to be a lot of wasted space if you compare the amount you've got on it with the hard disk size minus the free space.

Answer 2

Well the spec info is completely worthless. The best guess is that businesses for advertising say 1 Gb is 1000 Mb and 1 Mb is 1000Kb. However, system programs measure it accurately as 1 Mb=1034Kb and 1 Gb= 1024 Mb. As sizes go up, the difference will get greater. On the other hand, You may have a hidden partition. Another thing is the size of the default allocation unit on your hard drive. In each unit only 1 file can be stored in that unit. If you have lots of small file, there is hard drive space that can't be used. example if the default allocation unit is 64K and you have a 6K file, the other 58K is unusable.

Answer 3

easy answer no.
when you run disk check you only have to check both boxes in options box before starting.
Disk check will do the rest.
Also don't forget that windows reserves a small amount of your hard drive for system and background files on your hard drive.
The best thing to do is to get a registry cleaner like ashampoo winoptimiser or registry mechanic to keep your pc in top shape.
I use both, my pc flies and I never get bad clusters as the two fore mentioned programs keep my pc running smooth and clean.
Try defragmenting your hard drive where you find your disk check and you will notice some green bars when you analyse.
These are your system and background files that cannot be moved.
That's probably whee your missing gig's are.

Answer 4

First of all, what do you mean you are missing 5GB?

Do you mean that your hard drive is supposed to be (e.g) 80GB and windows is registering 75GB? If so, then this is just due to the way Windows measures your hard drive capacity. Hard drive manufacturers take 1GB to equal 1,000,000,000 bytes, whereas windows measures it as 1073741824 bytes (1024 x 1024 x 1024), hence it will display 73 MB less for each GB, so if your hard drive is supposed to be 80GB (80,000,000,000bytes) then windows will register it as 75GB (80,000,000,000/1073741824).

As for your files - remember that the space on your hard drive is not just taken up by the files that you physically save on there. There are also software installations (including Windows itself) and configuration files which will take up space also, explaining the discrepancy between your 4GB used and the 9GB actually used.

Answer 5

Have a look in Disk Management which is located in Administrative Tools in Control Panel.

This will tell you how big your disk is and whether there is a hidden partition on your disk.