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My hard drive partition has 323GB of total space and 154 GB of it is used by my files and pagefile.sys, So doing math, 323 GB - 154 GB = 169 GB, BUT the free space on my hard drive is shown as 110 GB which makes a deficit of exactly 59 GB. Can anyone please explain me what is happening here. I am attaching an image which shows the calculated size and the size of my drive as well as the size of all the files in this particular partition.

enter image description here

Moab
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harkyn
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  • Did you check the Windows Disk Management tool for some unallocated space? – Srinivas V Mar 12 '21 at 15:04
  • @SrinivasV The space is allocated to partition because it's included in filesystem's capacity, as seen on the screenshot – gronostaj Mar 12 '21 at 15:06
  • Did the same test on mine (BTW: It's faster if you just open Properties for the volume and the answer is really close) and the numbers line up within <1GB. So I suggest you run an integrity test and a virus scan. You may have lost blocks or hidden files. Otherwise, this is very strange indeed. – Itai Mar 12 '21 at 15:19
  • @Itai can you please tell me how can I do an integrity test, also I checked the drive's properties directly but it shows that it's less by 59 gigs – harkyn Mar 12 '21 at 15:25
  • Yes, the numbers coincide, it's just faster that way. From the same *Properties* dialog, there should be a tab called *Tools* and under there you can check the disk for errors (do that first) and then optimize/defragment (do that second). – Itai Mar 12 '21 at 15:38
  • @Itai Nope the size in drive properties and the properties of all the files in the drive is different (isn't this what the question is all about?), it differs by 50 GB, also I did the check errors and defragment but my drive is still missing by 50 GB – harkyn Mar 12 '21 at 15:53
  • optimize/defragment is a good plan.. but doesn't make a difference here.\ – Señor CMasMas Mar 12 '21 at 16:00
  • Part of your screenshot, the most critical part of it, is blocked by the calculator window – Ramhound Mar 12 '21 at 16:51

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Not everything shows up in explorer. Common examples are:

  • Recycle bin
  • crash dumps
  • pagefile.sys and hiberfil.sys - (pagefile may show up on non-system-drives)
  • there could be other system files of which I'm not aware

As yours seems not to be the system drive, my guess is for the recycle bin.

If you want to see the full disk usage, open the properties of the disk, rather than selecting all files and opening the combined properties: note on my image that "All in C." to the right is not the same as "used space" on disk C:\

Also, a tool like spacesniffer (in the background on my image) can help you to see everything that's on your disk and analyze "where all that space went" :).

enter image description here

1NN
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  • Spacesniffer is amazing, it looks like 60 GB of space on my drive is being used by System Volume Information folder which is exactly the deficit I was looking for, Now I exactly know where those 60 gigs went, Thanks! – harkyn Mar 13 '21 at 06:27