Weird hard drive problem

[Huguenot]

This I've never seen but I can't figure it out
This info I got off of my System Suite utility. Shows only 1.5GB of space left.
BUT when I run the program showing individual components it shows only 11 GB used on the C: Drive out of 19 GB. Thus there should be 8 GB left. (I also have an 80GB external HD)
As of a few days ago I had 8 GB left and I haven't gone crazy adding stuff tho I've been tinkering trying to figure out boot and freeze up problems.
What's going on here? The only thing I can think of is that something went haywire in some hidden system folders. Or something in the file allocation tables that the C: Drive doesn't show in terms of hard drive space used. Note it says only 1.59 GB "accessible."

What the heck is going on around here?


Sorry for the format fiasco below but you can get the idea


C: 19.00 GB

Drive Type Fixed
Total Storage Space 19.00 GB
User-accessible Free Space 1.58 GB
Sector Size 512 bytes
Total Sectors 39873267
Cluster Size 16.00 KB
Reserved Sectors 16.00 KB
Number of File Allocation Tables (FATs) 2
Track Size 31.50 KB
Reported Number of Heads 255
Hidden Space 31.50 KB
Volume Name DRIVE_C
Serial Number 07D0:0C14
Maximum Filename Length 255
File System Name FAT32

File System Attributes

Filename case is preserved on disk
Filenames are stored as Unicode strings

[Donnie]

Did you partition this drive into 2 seperate logical drives? Maybe by accident? If you try a program like Partition Magic it will show you your different partitions and what is available ....could be you created one drive smaller than you thought, and did not allocate the remaining space to another drive letter.....?

[Donnie]

Andy-
I don't know what operating system you are using, but these may be helpful...

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/q179144/

http://www.techexams.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=75

http://www.theeldergeek.com/hard_drives.htm

The last link is probably the most relevant!

[Rick]

What operating system are you running?

First thing I would suggest is running scandsk or chkdsk /f

For chkdsk /f you have to reboot for it to run but it gives you a message to that effect. Some of the older versions of Windows have scandsk (I am not 100% sure of the spelling.

The other thing I would question is using FAT32 if you have the option of using NTFS. I just don't like the cluster size of 16 KB. One book I have says NTFS is your best choice for the most efficient use of disk space and to maximize security.

One thing that can eat up disk space is the System Restore (Rollback option) in WinXP.

You might have to turn on making system files visible to see some of this.