External Hard Drive space wont increase

[Mvu]

I delete data on my external hard drive but the space does not increase, any advice?

 

[MickZA]

Maybe it's being moved to a trash directory in which case empty trash.

 

[Rickster]

Maybe it's being moved to a trash directory in which case empty trash.

External drives and USB drives don't have a Recycle bin.


Id say he must Refresh or press F5

 

[MickZA]

External drives and USB drives don't have a Recycle bin.

Wanna bet?

 

[Rickster]

Wanna bet?

I meant FAT32 Externals dont have a Recycle Bin. Ops external could be FAT32 or NTFS

 

[cypher912]

Externals does have trash / recycle bin

 

[xumwun]

Try delete it with shift + delete.

 

[Rickster]

Externals does have trash / recycle bin

If its NTFS, then yes, but not if its FAT32.

 

[MickZA]

I meant FAT32 Externals dont have a Recycle Bin. Ops external could be FAT32 or NTFS

That is a NTFS partition in the example although I'll admit it's being displayed via the files utility on linux.

Further reading - http://www.sevenforums.com/general-discussion/108772-57gb-externals-hidden-recycle-bin-2.html

 

[MickZA]

If its NTFS, then yes, but not if its FAT32.

Some fast footwork going on here

 

[gregmcc]

What OS are we talking about here - Win/Mac/Linux?

 

[TJ99]

If its NTFS, then yes, but not if its FAT32.

File system is irrelevant, it's dependant on the OS.

Windows doesn't normally send external drive files to the Recycle Bin, Linux or others do.

 

[Mvu]

Windows 7. The deleted files are gone but the space does not increase.

 

[LaraC]

Are you able to do a Disk Cleanup?

 

[MickZA]

Windows 7. The deleted files are gone but the space does not increase.

See here - http://www.sevenforums.com/general-discussion/108772-57gb-externals-hidden-recycle-bin.html

 

[SauRoNZA]

Windows 7. The deleted files are gone but the space does not increase.

This might seem obvious but I'll ask anyway.

You are looking at FREE space right? And not total hard drive capacity?

 

[RyanPCMR]

There are also some viruses that creates copies of files and saves the original with a hidden attribute. So after cleaning the virus from the external drive would then afterwards only show those duplicated filenames with a wrong extension that can be deleted, but the external drive will still show as having other files on it due to you having to remove the hidden attribute of each original file.

I normally just open a command prompt and then browse to the external drive by typing in the drive letter like <g:> and then enter to type in the attribute setting with the relevant command line options <attrib -r -h -s *.* /s /d>. That would reset the attributes of all the files on the external drive G and also search for files in each directory on the drive.

 

[Mvu]

See here - http://www.sevenforums.com/general-discussion/108772-57gb-externals-hidden-recycle-bin.html

Thank you I will try that and hopefully it will solve my problem.

 

[Mvu]

This might seem obvious but I'll ask anyway.

You are looking at FREE space right? And not total hard drive capacity?

Yes I am looking at the free space.

 

[Hectic]

Maybe this can point you to the files?
http://www.tweaknow.com/HDAnalyzer.php