[Denisejm]

Hi,

I have 2 external hards drives. One of the drives contains my original files and the other one contains my backups. These are the only files on the drives but one drive has 4.58Gb of free space and the other one has 60.1 Gb of free space. I checked the files on each drive and there are no files missing on the drive that has more space available. They both have the exact same files and use the exact number of Kb/'Mb. What could be using the 55Gb on the drive that has only 4.58Gb left?

Denise

Edited by Denisejm, 15 April 2007 - 12:38 PM.

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Go look at the disk managment and it may tell u why there is a difference.

Right click on My Computer -> Manage -> Disk Managment

Are the both formated the same way/partitions?

[vally]

Go look at the disk managment and it may tell u why there is a difference.

Right click on My Computer -> Manage -> Disk Managment

Are the both formated the same way/partitions?

[Denisejm]

Hi vally, Thanks for responding.

Both drives show that they have 465.76 Gb and are formatted NTFS. There isn't a second partition on either of them.

Could the drive be reserving a certain amount of space for something?

[vally]

R both disks by the same company?
If not I have seen in the past 2 hard drives of 200 gig each. That after formated they there was a 20 gig formating difference.

How did u back u you'r data?

If it was all copied at once than it does not make much since. If you make a backup wenever then each time u wright then it uses a bit more. It seems a bit too much of a difference but possible. If the space is critical try and coppy a whole block at a time of the data (at least 50gig) and c if it changes any thing.

[Denisejm]

The drive with only 4.58Gb is a Western Digital and the one with 60.1Gb is a Seagate. They're both SATA. They both contain the same files . . . one for my originals and one for my backups. I copy files from one to the other as I get them. I have several ext hdds. When I get them, I format them and assign them a drive letter. None of them needed software, but a CD came with them for people who have an os that's older than Windows 98. The drives were formatted when they were connected to my old computer, which had Windows 2000 XP Pro. I have have a new pc that has Windows XP Pro X64 but they didn't need to be reformatted again. My computer recognized them as new hardware but I didn't have to run the New Hardware Wizard for any of them except for a Maxtor, which needed Dantz.

Denise

[vally]

I spoke to some people I know. We all agree that it is does not make much sence.
The reasons we could think of are: system files on one, recycle bin is not empty, or that they r not formated the same way and could be caused by the creator.
Win 2K is the same O.S. that we had the problem with but based on you'r discription it doesn't seem to b the problem.

[Denisejm]

Hi,

Thanks for the info.

I right clicked on the drive and chose Properties. I clicked on Disk Clean-Up and there weren't any files in the Recycle Bin.

I'll move the files onto other drives and reformat it. Both drives show that the total size of the drive is 465Gb in My Computer and in Disk Management. When I move the files back onto the drive, if it still has only 4.58 Gb on it, I'll know it's because there are system files on it or that the space is reserved for something else.

Denise

Edited by Denisejm, 17 April 2007 - 09:23 AM.

[MannyL]

Are both drives using the same allocation unit size?

[Denisejm]

I don't know if they use the same allocation unit size . . . I've never looked for that info in the description of drives for sale but I guess with the changes from PATA to SATA and from XP Pro X32 to XP Pro X64, it could make a difference. Both drives are SATA. I have a Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 SATA 3.0Gb/s 320Gb int hdd, and a TForce 6100-939 SATA mobo.

I usually backup my data by copying over less than 1Gb at a time, occasionally 1.5Gb or 2Gb.

If I format the drive again and copy over the files from my backups, I'll know for sure that it has something to do with the way the drive works. 400Gb+ of files will take a lot of time to copy to the drive though.

Denise

Edited by Denisejm, 18 April 2007 - 07:28 PM.

[MannyL]

I'm thinking the allocation sizes are different and you have a lot of files using partial sectors.

I'm not sure how to check the allocation size from inside XP. I know Partition Magic used to tell you.

[Denisejm]

Yeah, I got where you were going with that question. I thought that All SATA drives use 64 instead of 128for each block and both ext hdds are SATA. If those aren't the correct numbers, I read about SATA using 1/2 the amount of space per block (sector). I don't want to buy a program. For a little more that a program would cost, I could get a another 250Gb ext hdd, but I'm trying to stick to buying hdds that are SATA 500Gb now and hopefully get a couple SATA 750s to replace the few USB 2.0 250s that I have. I have 4 SATA ext ports and I have 2 SATA ext hdds connected already so I have 2 left. I haven't seen any SATA HUBs yet. I have 13 ext hdds. I built the pc myself. It took me a few weeks and I ran into the weirdest problems and I had to reinstall Windows 2 times because some 32-bit pc cleaning programs weren't compatible and removed needed files. When I installed the SATA card, it blew my PSU and floppy drive and I can turn on my pc only by using the reset button. I installed a Corsair 620W PSU but I'm tired of working on it and want to just enjoy it for a while before I get into working on it again.

Denise

[MannyL]

I found out the chkdsk command will display the size please do a chkdsk on each drive and tell me how many bytes it shows in each allocation unit for each drive.

[Denisejm]

I couldn't find the info that you asked for in chkdsk unless it shows up only when it's run. When I clicked on Properties on each drive, the one that has less free space has 7101 security descriptors processed and the one with the large amount of free space has 8102 security descriptors processed. The cluster size for both of the is 4kb.

[Denisejm]

I ran each chkdsk and both of them stopped when they reached 5000 security sectors. I waited about 10 minutes but it didn't go any further and the only way I could exit the chkdsk was by restarting my pc. Cancel wasn't an option and when I clicked on the X, it just gave me the system sound that means that you can't do what you're trying to do.

[MannyL]

If they are both 4kb then that blows my idea out of the water