deleted files still take up space on HDD

I recently deleted about 17GB of files from my computer. Or, should i say, I was trying to? While deleting them, my computer froze up and after a reboot, the files were all gone. However, there is no change in the free space available on my hdd. Looking at it in windows explorer, my files should only take up around 40GB. However, it says that there is currently 57GB being used right now-the difference being those 17GB i was trying to delete earlier. Any ideas as to how i could fix this problem? i would like to have those 17GB completely deleted to free up some space on my hdd. thanks.

btw, if it matters, i'm currently running windows vista home basic.

 

I suspect they are being backed up by Vista, so go back to a point before the crash and delete again. Just a guess I don't have Vista.

 

do you mean using system restore to go back? i tried that but it turns out that system restore does not affect any of my documents so there was no difference

 

empty the recycle bin.

 

Lol, I like the suggestion, but I highly doubt he has his recycle bin set to save 17 GB of info. I would suggest to comb through your drives again, and make sure you have Show Hidden Files enabled. Vista (or any Microsoft OS) has a nasty habit of hiding things from the user. And a defrag afterwards is recommended.

 

i have 30gb of porn in my recycle bin. 17gb really isnt that much.

 

Is that so you can retrieve it?

 

lol. yes, i've emptied my recycle bin. either way though, it's only set to hold save a few gigs. i've gone through the drive multiple times and have hidden files shown. still nothing. so i'm defragmenting the hdd right now in hopes that will solve this. any idea how long a defrag takes?. my drive is 120gb and it's been running for about an hour now...

in case that doesn't work, any other suggestions out there?

 

The culprit may be System Restore files. They don't show up when you add up all the files in C:\, but they do count when you view the Properties tab. They take up about 13 GB of space on my 106 GB HD XP machine, and took up about 20 GB before I turned off System Restore with a 136 GB HD and Vista. 17 GB would be a normal amount for that to use up. If you turn off System Restore and magically get 17 GB, there's the space - but if you turn it off you lose all the restore points.

If Windows Explorer said 40 GB free before, then you do have a missing space problem. If it said 23 GB before, you got 17 GB, just are still minus a bit due to System Restore.

Defragging is a good time to do something else, by the way. If you haven't defragged in forever it can take a whole afternoon.

 

Oh wow. I didn't realize system restore took up so much space! After disabling it i gained 15gb, which isn't 17 but still seems about right. thanks for the help =)

 

yea! that's what I meant!

 

This thread has nothing to do with hardware. It's a Windows problem you're discussing so I think you should move it to the Windows forum.