Missing hard drive space after formatting

[Fleur-De-Lis 350]

So I recently formatted my computer since windows itself started giving me issues, for details on that check my blog (link in signature, its the latest blog post). Did the stuff I believed to be routine enough, you know, boot from CD, install windows on C drive, overritten the old stuff (which it said it would delete).

 

Funnily enough by the end of the installation it said that it put al the old files (for access, but not available to use the OS from) in windows.old (and from browsing, it seemed pretty much ALL my data was still there).

 

So by the time it was all said and done, and 24+ hours (im still working on it) of putting every single windows update, graphics drivers/chipsets and such. and deleting the windows.old folder (which in itself was 518Gb). I find i am still short another 500~700 Gb of space that should be available on my HDD.

 

I have a 2TB HDD. (1.81 actual space available) yet only 957 Gb of it is free (and supposedly I am using 905Gb). Ballparking all my personal files from the music, extensive wallpaper gallery, and game data (thus far). About 100~200Gb should be used tops (which I have counted myself, up to 200 is a generous margin of error). So the question is .... where is the other 500GB or so of free space I should have?.

 

Could it be hidden somewhere on the HDD waiting to erase itself as an emergency backup of sorts after formatting? Or is it hiding somewhere I should delete files from that I am unaware of?

 

*edit* I just ran the error checking tool (its chkdsk i believe) it finished within seconds, this further proves I am not using up nearly as much as my HDD as it says I am ...

 

*edit 2* Just ran a scan for my entire C:\ drive. The total space scanned was 106.7Gb ... That means I should have 1.7Tb (roughly) of space free. Yet instead I only have 956 Gb ... This means there is still 748Gb (roughly) of data that is used but unaccounted for ... My confusion is only heightened.

 

*edit 3* I used the "Disk Cleanup" that comes with windows, clicked "Clean up system files" which requires administrative privlidges, then explored its new options a bit, and found an interesting button that said "more options" so i went to that tab, and found a section that said to remove all but the most recent system restore point.

 

The  description read as such "In some editions of Windows. The disk might include file shadow copies and older windows complete PC backup images as part of restore points. This information will also be deleted." Under that impression I immedately knew my problem had to be the shadow copies!

 

Sure enough after I clicked the "Clean up ..." button in that section, the program became unresponsive for about 5 minutes. I check my available hard drive space, and BAM i now have 1.72Tb of free space. All is well and I am ever so happy once more. I list and detail this experience now, for those who may come across it, and solve this confusing problem; which can apparently eat up a good portion of your available space!

 

Kinda funny how I managed to solve it with a few hours of tinkering ... and *sad face* before anyone bothered to reply (but I understand its in the middle of the off hours, of the no one is awake at this time of the night/morning)

Edited February 27, 2015 by Fleur-De-Lis

[SCS 7,508]

Hiya @Fleur-De-Lis, I'll go ahead and lock this topic since you were able to figure out the problem. Sorry no one replied, but I'm glad you were able to get this fixed. 

 

This is helpful information, too: my first thought was that something went wrong in the formatting process, such as writing the wrong kind of file system or getting other specifications wrong. Didn't even think of older shadowcopies and backup images as part of system restore points.