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so i have a 1 tb hard drive that shows up as almost full in windows expolorer. when i ran windirstat to see whats taking up the space it showed that only ~450gb is taken up on the drive.

how can i figure out what else is on that drive?

i went into the folder options and chose to show hidden files and nothing else showed up.

there is a folder that cannot be deleted which i believe may be part of the problem. when i try to delete it i get a message saying that the item cannot be found.

is there anything i can do? preferably not a format of the drive.

i would like that extra space back

thanks

running win7 x64

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  • What's the name of that folder?
    – Karan
    Commented Jul 17, 2013 at 3:48
  • a folder i made called old mac trash. also i forgot to say that this is not the c drive, it is an extra drive with drive letter f
    – user214577
    Commented Jul 17, 2013 at 3:49
  • If you have access to a Mac or Linux (even a LiveCD/USB will do), use that to get rid of the folder, then check back to see drive usage in Windows.
    – Karan
    Commented Jul 17, 2013 at 3:50
  • cani use gparted live?
    – user214577
    Commented Jul 17, 2013 at 4:13
  • gparted will repartition the drive, requiring a format. You could try using Cygwin to install a command-line version of rm if you like. But if you can get as far as gparted, why not use rm -Rf on that drive after mounting it?
    – user3463
    Commented Jul 17, 2013 at 4:53

1 Answer 1

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Use a Linux LiveCD to view the contents of the drive and delete the bloating files. Sometimes Mac OSX will put extra files on hard drives/flash drives as things are deleted. These begin to take up space when you view them from Windows.

I would suggest downloading UNetbootin. Grab any old flash drive, preferably sized 1gig, and transfer all the files off of it and somewhere safe. Run UNetbootin, select "Distribution", and pick "xPUD". Select the USB letter and hit accept. Make absolutely sure you've selected the correct USB device, and not the F drive letter.

One it's finished, pull out the USB stick and reboot your computer. Enter BIOS and set USB to first boot. This is usually done by pressin the F1, F2, F10, or ESC key while your computer is booting up. Exit, saving changes, and plug in the USB stick. Watch as the Linux magicks take over your computer and boot into a quick, simple OS. Click the big "File" icon, navigate to your hardrive, and look for the dastardly files. Once deleted, reboot, pull out the USB stick, and you're good to go. Delete xPUD. Optionally format the USB stick.

Good luck!

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