 Can I Safely Reformat An Empty Partition To Reclaim "used" Memory?, D:\ is EMPTY but has "192MB used space" which USED to be " |
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 Jan 16 2008, 09:54 AM
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New Member  Group: Members Posts: 10 Joined: 7-January 08 Member No.: 181,695  |
My laptop came with a single SATA HDD that was partitioned into a C:\ and a D:\ drive. I haven't used my D:\ until now that my C:\ has filled up. Once that happened, I dragged and dropped the 'My Documents' folder into the D:\ drive - then thought better of it, dragged it back into C:\ and came onto this forum for advice one how best to go about it (see http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/topic124574.html). Before all this action, the D:\ was always shown as having "Used Space: 0MB, Capacity: 72GB". After all the dragging-and-dropping to and from C:\, however, D:\ supposedly has "Used Space: 192MB, Capacity: 71.8GB". I tried to return D:\ to its completely empty state by clearing it out, viewing and removing hidden files, using Disk Clean-up, running Defrag, etc. But it still shows as having "Used Space: 192MB, Capacity: 71.8GB"! Why is this? I mean, I know that amount of usable disk space is not always as advertised, but how come D:\ used to be able to to show 0MB used space, but now has to show 192MB used space even though it is just as empty as before?! So now I'm thinking of reformatting D:\. But since D:\ is just a partition within a drive, won't reformatting it affect my C:\ as well? If so, how? Are there any (other) dangers to re-formatting the D:\ partition? How do I even go about reformatting just the D:\ partition safely? (I really don't want to touch C:\ ...) Finally, is there any other way that I can 're-claim' those 192MB? (I know 192MB isn't much compared to the 71.8GB I've got left, but it's still a good 2 or 3 music-album's worth of space ...) Thanks in advance! Any help is much appreciated! Edit: Bw, the defrag analysis offered the following info: QUOTE Volume ACERDATA (D:) Volume size = 72.04 GB Cluster size = 4 KB Used space = 216 MB Free space = 71.83 GB Percent free space = 99 % Volume fragmentation Total fragmentation = 0 % File fragmentation = 1 % Free space fragmentation = 0 % File fragmentation Total files = 108 Average file size = 2 MB Total fragmented files = 1 Total excess fragments = 6 Average fragments per file = 1.05 Pagefile fragmentation Pagefile size = 0 bytes Total fragments = 0 Folder fragmentation Total folders = 13 Fragmented folders = 1 Excess folder fragments = 0 Master File Table (MFT) fragmentation Total MFT size = 12 MB MFT record count = 136 Percent MFT in use = 1 % Total MFT fragments = 3 (things in bold are by me) This just reiterates my question tho: What and where are those 108 Total files and/or 13 Total folders? This post has been edited by TRUEfrancesca: Jan 16 2008, 10:44 AM |
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Jan 16 2008, 11:12 AM
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Forum Addict Group: BC Advisor Posts: 7,460 Joined: 3-September 05 From: Killeen, TX Member No.: 33,068 |
Perspective: 192 MB is nothing
 , but I understand your irritation.I find that, even on a partition where nothing exists, there probably is a recycle bin reserve set up. If you deleted items from that drive, that reserve is there and you won't get that space back until you dump your Recycle Bin on the desktop. The answer to your question: No, do not reformat any partition ever...just to reclaim or know where 192 MB of space might be lost. Empty the Recycle Bin and see if it reverts. Another possibility lies in the fact that you might be using System Restore, which kind of works the same way as I described the RB. If the drive reflects a SR folder, the way to get rid of that is to turn off SR for that particular drive. Start, right-click on My Computer, select Properties, click on the SR tab. Louis |
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Jan 16 2008, 11:37 AM
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 Visiting Alien Group: Members Posts: 5,140 Joined: 20-May 07 From: millenium falcon and rockytop Member No.: 131,963 |
Your priorities are all wrong, start moving data off your C partition to the D a little at a time, having a data partition is an asset.
Filling the C drive with data is the death of a computer. Moving data from one partition to another on the same physical drive should be done cautiously, you are really thrashing the drive trying to read and write from it at the same time. -------------------- Chewy
life is like a box of chocolates and stupid is as stupid does but you can always run |
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