Hard Drive Available Capacity is Wrong

[regis9 3,996]

Hello, today I got a message that my 3TB hard drive was out of space.  I deleted some unneeded files (files used to generate tiles in Ortho4xp) until I got down to 398 GB free but it still didn't make sense to me...just knowing what I had on there I couldn't imagine how it could be full.

So I selected all of the directories in the root of the drive in question and they only added up to around 1GB, which makes more sense....so I should have closer to 2 GB left free.

Any idea what might be going on?

Thanks,

Dave

[RamonB 449]

Hello

Assuming the drive has no hardware issues.

1- Run a chkdsk /f on the drive (to try an recover/fix free disk space)

2- It could be that the drive was partitioned using MBR partition style (AFAIK MBR can't manage drives larger than 2TB).
If so then only solutions I know are to either convert or re partition the drive using GPT Style..
See here Convert an MBR disk into a GPT disk  or Using GPT Drives.

To find out what partition style your drive has. Goto Computer Management -> Storage -> Disk Management  -> Select Your Drive -> Properties

If there is an option Convert to GPT drive then fine. (Make Backups before proceeding),
but, if there is no option then You will have to delete de volume and re partition using GPT.
CAUTION: You might lose all data on the drive.

Or it could also be related to the BIOS, Motherboard (Type and age), etc.

 

Edited November 22, 2018 by RamonB

[G-RFRY 1,705]

Windows by default reserves some of the space defrag needs 15% of free space.  

[Ian S 214]

Is your temporary internet cache on that hard-drive?

[mdata 46]

Hello Dave,
You may want to check the SMART status of your HDD. CrystalDiskInfo is a nice tool you can use to do so. Here is an article describing how to use it: https://www.howtogeek.com/134735/how-to-see-if-your-hard-drive-is-dying/

If the disk report would be fine you could investigate your HDD with another nice tool called TreeSize: https://www.jam-software.com/treesize_free/ (both tools are freeware for private use)
TreeSize will show you the occupancy of your HDD; which is very helpful if you want to get an idea where all your precious space went.

Best Regards
Frank

[regis9 3,996]

Thanks everyone, I think I've figured it out...somewhat.  Confirmed my HDD is in good shape using the above utility.  Treesize produced some interesting results, it confirmed that I only have ~398GB remaining free.  It pointed toward my X-Plane 11 directory as my biggest file size location.  Digging deeper, it's clear that each ortho4xp tile I created is taking up gigabytes of data, explaining why this occurred after leaving my computer on to create a large number of ortho files while I was away for a few days.

The only remaining puzzle for me is that even now, if I click on the Custom Scenery folder (parent folder to the aforementioned ortho4xp folders), it only shows a total of ~5GB of files in the folder...I wonder why it's not picking up all those files in its subfolders?

In any event, the clear culprit is way too many Ortho4xp tiles...I just wish my computer had given me a clear picture of their size when I was creating them, will need to go back and deleted a bunch now.

Thanks for your help and suggestions everyone.