I deleted everything, not formatted, but just deleted all folders and may need to format.

I show 0 files, but 32 GB of space used. I am showing all hidden files, or I enabled that choice. Should I just go ahead and format it? This is a 500 GB ext hard drive.

Thanks

What is the file format? Fat or NTFS? If NTFS there is a space being used as the Master File Table. (MFT) This file has all of the information on where other files are stored. If a file is small enough, it is actually stored within the MFT. Therefore you really don't lose all that space. If it is a second drive, reformatting it with options other than default can speed it up and make it more efficient. Let me know.

It is an NFTS.

Actually that sounds about right with formatting and such. My 1TB drive has 931GB of usable space. So I think you are okay with a NTFS formatted drive and loosing that much.

All drives never format to their full capacity, so as others have said, that probably is pretty much normal for a 500GB drive.

I have not formatted it, yet. I just deleted all the old files. I guess I need to go ahead and format it and start using it.

Thanks for the help! I need it.

The MFT has allocated some space for the operating functions on an NTFS disk. The MFT is a system file so you won't be able to see it. It works as I said above. You really haven't lost that much space on the drive. If you would like a little faster performance from your drive, reformat it and change the cluster size to 4048 instead of the 512 default size. (You really should do this anyways.) If you decide to reformat it, you must do so prior to using it as all information on it will be lost.

If you deleted the files, it is still considered formatted. You can reformat it, but unless you obtain some special software from the drive manufacturer, I don't think it is possible to remove it's formatting!

There are two type of formatting. A low level and a standard format. A standard format will be done after the low level format. Unless you have special low level format software you cannot do a low level format, nor would you want to normally. It may destroy the drive and is best left alone. The standard format can usually be done with just the operating software and can be done easily if you are not formatting the drive with the operating system on it. In order to format the drive with the operating system you can do it at the time of installation or temporarily put it in a different system as a second drive and format it as such.

Mornin TxDoc
I have been watching this thread. When I formated my new drive I used my old 98 boot disk and used the format c: /u switch. I did that before I sectioned it off into my 4 drives. I'm not sure what the difference is using NTFS and FAT, but I am used to FAT (old school) You don't need the /s, that's just for the old floppies, but the /u WILL give you a clean HD to start out with.

Hobbles, NTFS is a much better file structure. The old FAT format is more prone to corruption and data loss. NTFS does some checking that makes data corruption less likely. If there is corruption using NTFS the odds of recovering are much much greater. There are other reasons but this is the most compelling reason to use it.

BTW the /u on the old format meant format unconditionally.

Afternoon Deolman
"BTW the /u on the old format meant format unconditionally."
Yes it does, That's why you get a clean HD. and the /s is for system,
I can see I have to check out the NTFS system.

I can't tell you how many times I ran a "chkdsk /f" on a corrupt NTFS drive and it always repaired the data enough I could get the data off of the drive. Sometimes though, it was not enough to save the OS but after saving the data I could usually reformat and start over. The point though, is I retrieved the data.

BTW with an NTFS file system there are a lot more robust actions to keep your data in tact. Now if you start with a FAT drive and then convert it after the OS has been installed, the drive will still exhibit a lot of the operations of a FAT drive even though it has been converted to NTFS.

Mornin Deolman
I will have to wait till I want to redo my HD now as it's already in fat and I don't want to loose anything/everything or redo the set up. But it does sound like an improvement. You seem to be happy with it. And you have been usin it awhile. Thanks for the info.