[gambit7]

This is a bizarre one. My hard drive is 35GB. However, lately as I have been deleting things I do not recover the entire space which should be freed up. In windows if you click the c drive properties it says 30GB is used and 5BG are free. However, I have cleared most of my hard drive up and the used space is nowhere near this amount. Running programs such as WinDirStat takes a look at all the files within the hard drive and calculates that it is only 15 GB large (confirming 5GB of free space but neglecting the other 20GB). I know this hard drive is 35 GB large, as I have had this computer for 4 years now and have definately filled it up at times. If someone can explain this i will be amazed. Thanks!

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Have you run a disk scan to correct any errors? You may have some errors in your file system table. It will do best in Safe Mode, press the F8 key during boot and choose it. You can also enable view hidden files in Folder Options and look for large folders. The system restore folder should be a first place to look. Doing disk cleanup and scanning for errors, then defragmenting would be the proper order. If you haven't done them in a while they may take a long time, overnight or so, but they will be worth it.

[Tyger]

Have you run a disk scan to correct any errors? You may have some errors in your file system table. It will do best in Safe Mode, press the F8 key during boot and choose it. You can also enable view hidden files in Folder Options and look for large folders. The system restore folder should be a first place to look. Doing disk cleanup and scanning for errors, then defragmenting would be the proper order. If you haven't done them in a while they may take a long time, overnight or so, but they will be worth it.

[WinCrazy]

There's no need to go into Safe Mode to check and repair file system corruption.

In Explorer right-click on the volume letter ( C: ).
Select Properties.
Click the Tools tab.
Click the Check Now... button.
If it tells you that the volume needs to be checked on the next startup then agree and restart your PC.

This may very well fix the apparent missing hard drive space problem.
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Here's a couple of tools that visualize what files are taking up room on a volume:

Sequoia View
http://www.win.tue.nl/sequoiaview/

Tree Size Free
http://www.jam-softw...are/index.shtml