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General discussion

External Hard Drive wrongly shows almost full

Jun 21, 2010 4:01PM PDT

My external hard drive shows only 4.86 GB remaining of 465 GB. No way this is correct. I have around 90 GB of music, and aside from backing up my computer I can't think of anything else. The drive has shown around 300 GB free since I got it and initially moved my music and backup to it. Now all of a sudden it shows full. Any help I'm not an expert computer guy, so please explain clearly. I use Windows 7. The drive is a Buffalo MiniStation. The computer is an HP Pavilion laptop. In the time it took to post this message, it went from 4.86 GB free to 4.76 GB free. What's happening???? yesterday it showed around 20 GB free.

Discussion is locked

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Screenshot
Jun 21, 2010 4:10PM PDT

Here is a screenshot of the disc and what it contains

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Sorry about all the posts. Note me level of expertise.
Jun 21, 2010 4:11PM PDT
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The backup itself could be ther culprit...
Jun 25, 2010 3:52PM PDT

I've seen several Backup programs that go nuts for all the space they can get. Some of them allow you to set a limit on that some don't. Some also hide some the files they create due to the belief that someone might delete them (either on purpose or by accident) and corrupt the backup. One more thing are there any hidden partitions? My HP has one. If you press F9 during the boot up it will load a "Diagnostic" Partition PC PITSTOP and run a set of tests on the computer. Could you have a hidden Partition? Hope this helps.

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Answer : External Hard Drive wrongly shows almost full
Jun 27, 2010 6:25AM PDT

May, it is Due to Virus attack
Install Anti virus Norton or Avira or avast and update it, scan you PC and External Hard Drive.
if not correct this problem then format PC and reinstall O.S and External Hard Drive after scanning your PC and External Hard Drive

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Not Wrong
Jun 29, 2010 2:50PM PDT

Just looking at your saved pic and straight away I see that Windows Easy Transfer is taking up 388 GB on that drive along with other folders I can see why you only have 4.76 GB left.

Delete Windows Easy Transfer folder then do another Transfer to get your backup. It looks like its done about four or five copy's of your data to the one folder as your master disk C is only 140 GB's.

Windows Easy Transfer maybe saving data to that file on that drive every time you start your PC. Once you have re-done your transfer that file should only be about 10 to 20 GB's depending on how much data you have in photos, videos and other personal files. Keep a check on the file size once new back up has been done and if it keeps increasing look for why.

At the moment that file on your F drive is three times the size of your whole C drive.