Most people are using the hard drive and it is one of the main storage media. But some people find some hard drive space is missing without knowing the exact reason. Here's a case from CNET.
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'I have a PC running Windows 7 Professional with a 250GB SSD for the system and some programs, and an additional 3TB SATA hard disk drive. Explorer shows that this drive has a usable capacity of 2.72TB and 470GB of free space whilst indicating that folders and files are using 2.2TB of space. The drive has no partitions or hidden files but when I add up the space taken by all of the folders and files Explorer shows just under 300GB of space used. What might be the explanation for only 470GB of free space being shown when in fact there should be something like 2.4GB of free space??'
Are you troubled by the same case? If the answer is yes, you are lucky. You can find 6 possible causes and corresponding solutions. Now, find out what's taking up space and why space is missing.
| Workable Solutions | Step-by-step Troubleshooting |
|---|---|
| Fix 1. Contact the Manufacturers | If your missing space is far more than 7% disk space, you should contact the manufacturers..Full steps |
| Fix 2. Unhide Partitions with Software | Choose a partition > Right-click it and click 'Explore'..Full steps |
| Fix 3. Disable System Protection | Right-click on This PC/Computer and choose 'Properties' and then click 'System Protection'..Full steps |
| Fix 4. Restore Missing Space | Right-click the unallocated space and select 'New Simple Volume' to create..Full steps |
| Fix 5. Delete Hibernate File | Go to Start menu, type cmd and right-click on the results 'Command Prompt' and..Full steps |
| Fix 6. Reformat the Partition | Run EaseUS Partition Master again and select the partition and click'Format'..Full steps |
What Takes Up the Missing Space - 6 Causes
Get more free space with Disk Diet. With over 5000 international five-star ratings and world class support, Disk Diet a must have tool for every Mac user. Features: Removes unused language translations from applications. Cleans up caches. Cleans out the downloads folder. Cleans out old iOS software updates. Cleans out the mail downloads folder. This means that no memory space is dedicated to running a disk operating system, as was the case with earlier systems such as the Apple II and TRS-80. Commodore BASIC 2.0 is used instead of the more advanced BASIC 4.0 from the PET series, since C64 users were not expected to need the disk-oriented enhancements of BASIC 4.0. The disk is now labeled. Go to step 10 to exit the format utility. Enter type at the format prompt. The Available Drive Types menu is displayed. Select a disk type from the list of possible disk types. Specify disk type (enter its number)12: 12. Or, select 0 to automatically configure a SCSI-2 disk.
What if the windows lose too much space on a hard drive, PS3 hard drive, XBOX 360 and portable hard drive? To find out the missing storage on the hard disk drive or SSD, we need to first figure out what occupies the missing space. In general, there about 6 situations that cause windows missing space on the hard drive.
1. Hard Disk Manufacturers Does not Give Capacity They Promise
There are different capacities of the hard disk, including 500GB, 1TB, 2TB, and so on. However, when checking the capacity of the newly bought hard disk in Windows Disk Management or by adding space of each drive, we may find the real disk size is always smaller than those manufacturers advertise. What's the reason? Where is the missing space?
In fact, for hard disk manufacturers 1 GB = 1000 MB, 1 MB = 1000 KB, and 1KB = 1000 B (byte), but actually 1 GB = 1024 MB, 1 MB = 1024 KB, and 1 KB = 1024 B. Therefore a 500 GB hard disk for manufacturers is just 465GB for user. Therefore, around 7% of disk space missing on a hard drive is reasonable.
2. Hidden Partitions Take Up Space
Most computers and laptops come with the hidden partition, such as OEM partition, recovery partition, and Microsoft reserved partition. Autodesk maya lt 2020. You can see hidden partitions in Disk Management, or delete OEM partition if you have backed up the system.
3. System Protection Takes Up Much Space
System protection is a feature that regularly creates and saves information about your computer's system files and settings. It creates restore points just before significant system events, for example, install a program or device driver. If the restore points set to half the drive capacity, much space will be taken. Check the 'System Volume Information' folder to view the data.
4. There Is Unpartitioned Hard Disk Space
A newly bought hard disk cannot be used to save data unless we partition it. To be specific, we need to create partitions on the disk. Only partitioned space can be visible in Windows Explorer, but we can see unpartitioned space or unallocated space in Disk Management.
Although you have found what occupies the missing space, you may want to know the way to recover the missing space and get the real capacity of your hard drive.
5. Hibernate File or Page File Eats up a Lot of Space
Both hibernate file (hiberfil.sys) and page file (pagefile.sys) are hidden system files. Hiberfil.sys is a file created by the operating system when the computer goes into Hibernation Mode. The size of this file is half of the RAM space. For example, if your computer RAM is 8GB, the hibernation file (hiberfil.sys) is about 4GB in size. Both hibernate file (hiberfil.sys) and page file are invisible by default. You can see them when you enter 'Folder Options' and then uncheck 'Hide protected operating system files'.
6. Employed Unreasonable Cluster Size
A cluster is the smallest logical amount of disk space. One cluster can only hold the content of one file. If a file is 3 times larger than the cluster size of the partition, it will occupy 3 clusters. When we are viewing how much space our files are taking up, we may find a strange situation where real file size is 8.37 KB but these files occupy 12 KB space on the disk. The occupied disk space is always larger than real file size if this partition saves small files. Fortunately, we can make them take up less space by decreasing cluster size.
6 Fixes to Recover Missing Space and Restore the Hard Drive to Full Capacity
Now that you have figured out what's taking up your HDD space and why space is missing, you can follow the 6 solutions below to make the hard disk shows its full capacity and regain the missing space.
Fix 1. Contact the Manufacturers
As I have mentioned above, around 7% of disk space missing on a hard drive is reasonable. If your missing space is far more than 7% disk space, you should contact the manufacturers. But, if your missing space is around 7%, for example, a 1TB hard disk shows 931GB, under this situation, we have nothing to do for the missing disk space.
Fix 2. Unhide Partitions with Software
When you install Windows OS on a never used hard disk, hidden partitions will also be created by default. All these hidden partitions will not be shown in Windows Explorer. They can be shown in Disk Management. But Disk Management does not give an option to browse the contents of these partitions. If you want to view and the contents of the hidden partitions, you need useful software. EaseUS Partition Master can not only show us all hidden partitions but offers a feature to view the contents of these hidden partitions. That is Explore. This feature is used to browse a partition of FAT/NTFS/ReFS/EXT2/EXT3 file system. With this feature, you can check the following information:
- Total and free space of the entire partition.
- The File directory of all folders and files. There is Created/Modified/Accessed time information for each folder/file.
- The size information of a specific file is also available with this feature.
Follow the steps to view the whole information of your partition.
Step 1. Choose a partition.
Step 2. Right-click it and click 'Explore'.
Then, you can see which partition has no drive letter or which is partition. Under this situation, we can figure out where the missing space is and assign a drive letter or unhide partitions.
Fix 3. Disable System Protection
System protection creates and saves information about your computer's system files and settings, which could take up a lot of space. Then, disabling system protection is a nice choice to free up space.
Step 1. Right-click on This PC/Computer and choose 'Properties' and then click 'System Protection'.
Step 2. Click on the Configure button under the 'System Protection' tab.
In the Restore Settings, you will see an option asking you to Turn off system protection. Select this option and Apply the changes you made.
If you have a large space on your HDD, you can keep this option on, for it protects your system.
Fix 4. Partition the Space and Restore Missing Space
Unpartitioned space is known as 'Unallocated space'. When you see unallocated space, you cannot use this disk until you have created a partition on it. To partition it and restore the hard drive to full capacity, you can do the following things:
Method 1. Recover the unallocated space manually
1. Right-click the unallocated space and select 'New Simple Volume' to create a new partition with that space. You can create multiple partitions using this space, just choose the size properly.
2. Alternatively, right-click the partition before the unallocated space and select 'Extend Volume' to extend the partition to this space.
Method 2.Restore missing space by using a partition tool
If you have a problem with partitioning the unallocated space manually, you can use professional partition software to finish the work easily.
Step 1: Launch EaseUS Partition Master
On the main window, right-click on the unallocated space on your hard drive or external storage device and select 'Create'.
Step 2: Adjust the new partition size, file system, label, etc.
Set the size, partition label, drive letter, file system, etc. for the new partition and click 'OK' to continue.
Step 3: Confirm to create a new partition
Click on the 'Execute Operation' button and confirm to create a new partition by clicking 'Apply'.
Fix 5. Delete Hibernate File
Hibernate file can also take up lots of space, you can delete them to restore missing space on HDD. Here are the steps to delete hiberfil.sys file.
Step 1. Go to Start menu, type cmd and right-click on the results 'Command Prompt' and select 'Run as administrator'.
Step 2. Then type powercfg -h off and press 'Enter'.
Fix 6. Reformat the Partition to Decrease Cluster Size
Cluster size is set when we are formatting a partition. When you employed an unreasonable cluster size, you can format this partition to reset cluster size. Follow the steps below to format partition with the best HDD format tool. You can change the cluster size during the process. Here, we recommend 512 bytes.
Any one of the solutions could have solved your problem. If you still have questions you can contact the live chat or send an email to us.
People Also Ask
1. Why does my hard drive not show full capacity?
There about 6 situations that cause windows missing space on the hard drive:
- Hard disk manufacturers do not give the capacity they promise
- Hidden partitions take up much space
- There is unpartitioned hard disk space
- Too many hibernate files
- Employed unreasonable cluster size
2. How do I recover lost space on my hard drive?
You can either follow the 6 fixes above or use partition recovery software to recover lost partition.
3. Why is my C drive so full?
Your C drive gets full due to various reasons. If my C drive is full without reason issue appears in Windows 7/8/10, you can clean up junk files and other unimportant data to free up hard disk space. Refer to SSD full for no reason.
4. How do I find a hidden partition on my hard drive?
The easiest way to find hidden partitions is to try EaseUS Partition Master.
1. Launch EaseUS Partition Master and right-click the New Volume which is hidden.
Although you have found what occupies the missing space, you may want to know the way to recover the missing space and get the real capacity of your hard drive.
5. Hibernate File or Page File Eats up a Lot of Space
Both hibernate file (hiberfil.sys) and page file (pagefile.sys) are hidden system files. Hiberfil.sys is a file created by the operating system when the computer goes into Hibernation Mode. The size of this file is half of the RAM space. For example, if your computer RAM is 8GB, the hibernation file (hiberfil.sys) is about 4GB in size. Both hibernate file (hiberfil.sys) and page file are invisible by default. You can see them when you enter 'Folder Options' and then uncheck 'Hide protected operating system files'.
6. Employed Unreasonable Cluster Size
A cluster is the smallest logical amount of disk space. One cluster can only hold the content of one file. If a file is 3 times larger than the cluster size of the partition, it will occupy 3 clusters. When we are viewing how much space our files are taking up, we may find a strange situation where real file size is 8.37 KB but these files occupy 12 KB space on the disk. The occupied disk space is always larger than real file size if this partition saves small files. Fortunately, we can make them take up less space by decreasing cluster size.
6 Fixes to Recover Missing Space and Restore the Hard Drive to Full Capacity
Now that you have figured out what's taking up your HDD space and why space is missing, you can follow the 6 solutions below to make the hard disk shows its full capacity and regain the missing space.
Fix 1. Contact the Manufacturers
As I have mentioned above, around 7% of disk space missing on a hard drive is reasonable. If your missing space is far more than 7% disk space, you should contact the manufacturers. But, if your missing space is around 7%, for example, a 1TB hard disk shows 931GB, under this situation, we have nothing to do for the missing disk space.
Fix 2. Unhide Partitions with Software
When you install Windows OS on a never used hard disk, hidden partitions will also be created by default. All these hidden partitions will not be shown in Windows Explorer. They can be shown in Disk Management. But Disk Management does not give an option to browse the contents of these partitions. If you want to view and the contents of the hidden partitions, you need useful software. EaseUS Partition Master can not only show us all hidden partitions but offers a feature to view the contents of these hidden partitions. That is Explore. This feature is used to browse a partition of FAT/NTFS/ReFS/EXT2/EXT3 file system. With this feature, you can check the following information:
- Total and free space of the entire partition.
- The File directory of all folders and files. There is Created/Modified/Accessed time information for each folder/file.
- The size information of a specific file is also available with this feature.
Follow the steps to view the whole information of your partition.
Step 1. Choose a partition.
Step 2. Right-click it and click 'Explore'.
Then, you can see which partition has no drive letter or which is partition. Under this situation, we can figure out where the missing space is and assign a drive letter or unhide partitions.
Fix 3. Disable System Protection
System protection creates and saves information about your computer's system files and settings, which could take up a lot of space. Then, disabling system protection is a nice choice to free up space.
Step 1. Right-click on This PC/Computer and choose 'Properties' and then click 'System Protection'.
Step 2. Click on the Configure button under the 'System Protection' tab.
In the Restore Settings, you will see an option asking you to Turn off system protection. Select this option and Apply the changes you made.
If you have a large space on your HDD, you can keep this option on, for it protects your system.
Fix 4. Partition the Space and Restore Missing Space
Unpartitioned space is known as 'Unallocated space'. When you see unallocated space, you cannot use this disk until you have created a partition on it. To partition it and restore the hard drive to full capacity, you can do the following things:
Method 1. Recover the unallocated space manually
1. Right-click the unallocated space and select 'New Simple Volume' to create a new partition with that space. You can create multiple partitions using this space, just choose the size properly.
2. Alternatively, right-click the partition before the unallocated space and select 'Extend Volume' to extend the partition to this space.
Method 2.Restore missing space by using a partition tool
If you have a problem with partitioning the unallocated space manually, you can use professional partition software to finish the work easily.
Step 1: Launch EaseUS Partition Master
On the main window, right-click on the unallocated space on your hard drive or external storage device and select 'Create'.
Step 2: Adjust the new partition size, file system, label, etc.
Set the size, partition label, drive letter, file system, etc. for the new partition and click 'OK' to continue.
Step 3: Confirm to create a new partition
Click on the 'Execute Operation' button and confirm to create a new partition by clicking 'Apply'.
Fix 5. Delete Hibernate File
Hibernate file can also take up lots of space, you can delete them to restore missing space on HDD. Here are the steps to delete hiberfil.sys file.
Step 1. Go to Start menu, type cmd and right-click on the results 'Command Prompt' and select 'Run as administrator'.
Step 2. Then type powercfg -h off and press 'Enter'.
Fix 6. Reformat the Partition to Decrease Cluster Size
Cluster size is set when we are formatting a partition. When you employed an unreasonable cluster size, you can format this partition to reset cluster size. Follow the steps below to format partition with the best HDD format tool. You can change the cluster size during the process. Here, we recommend 512 bytes.
Any one of the solutions could have solved your problem. If you still have questions you can contact the live chat or send an email to us.
People Also Ask
1. Why does my hard drive not show full capacity?
There about 6 situations that cause windows missing space on the hard drive:
- Hard disk manufacturers do not give the capacity they promise
- Hidden partitions take up much space
- There is unpartitioned hard disk space
- Too many hibernate files
- Employed unreasonable cluster size
2. How do I recover lost space on my hard drive?
You can either follow the 6 fixes above or use partition recovery software to recover lost partition.
3. Why is my C drive so full?
Your C drive gets full due to various reasons. If my C drive is full without reason issue appears in Windows 7/8/10, you can clean up junk files and other unimportant data to free up hard disk space. Refer to SSD full for no reason.
4. How do I find a hidden partition on my hard drive?
The easiest way to find hidden partitions is to try EaseUS Partition Master.
1. Launch EaseUS Partition Master and right-click the New Volume which is hidden.
2. Select Unhide partition and click OK.
3. Then click Apply and restart the computer to keep all changes in your PC.
It is possible to restore a disk image to a larger or smaller hard drive with automatic or manual resize
This article applies to:
- Acronis True Image Home 10 and newer
- Acronis True Image 9.1 Server for Windows
- Acronis True Image 9.1 Workstation
- Acronis True Image 9.1 Enterprise Server
- Acronis True Image 9.1 Server for Linux
- Acronis True Image Echo Server for Windows
- Acronis True Image Echo Workstation
- Acronis True Image Echo Enterprise Server
- Acronis True Image Echo Server for Linux
If you are using Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 see .
Introduction
When you transfer a system to a hard drive that is larger or smaller than the original one, Acronis True Image allows you to create a new partition layout to fit the hard disk of a larger or smaller size.
It is possible to restore a disk image to a smaller drive if the smaller drive has enough space to accommodate the occupied space of the larger disk (e.g. if you have a 200 GB disk with 100 GB occupied space, you can transfer image of this disk to a 150 GB drive, but not to 80 GB disk).
Solution
Resizing all partitions proportionally during restore:
(!) This can be done only with a backup of an entire hard disk.
- Create a backup of an entire hard disk that you want to restore to a larger or smaller one;
- Boot the computer with the new hard disk from Acronis Bootable Media;
- Restore the image;
- All the partitions will be restored proportionally to fit in the new hard drive automatically.
Resizing all or separate partitions manually during restore:
- Create a backup of entire hard disk or some partitions that you want to restore to a larger or smaller hard disk or partitions;
- Boot the computer with the new hard disk from Acronis Bootable Media;
- Restore the image. At the Partition or Disk to Restore step of Restore Data Wizard do not select and entire disk. Select a single partition and follow through the wizard. You will get a Restored Partition Size option, which you can adjust.
Sample scenario with Acronis True Image Home 2010
- Select Recover whole disks and partitions:
- Select a partition:
- Under Partition type, select Change default:
- Change the partition size by dragging the marker on the size bar or by setting the size manually:
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More information
If the original hard drive stays on the same disk controller or RAID controller as the original hard drive, you do not need to apply Acronis Universal Restore. If you change the disk controller or RAID controller to another one, Acronis Universal Restore will be required. Waveform online.
See also Restoring to Dissimilar Hardware with Acronis True Image Echo Universal Restore.
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If there is an issue with Acronis True Image not resizing the partition or not offering to resize, this may be due to the following:
- There is a compatibility issue with encryption software installed on the machine. See ;
- There may be file system errors on the disk. Please run a checkdisk on the partition and then recreate the disk/partition backup and reattempt the restore with resizing:
Go to the Command Prompt (Start-Run -> cmd);
Enter the command:
chkdsk DISK: /r Smooze 1 5 6 – rediscover your mouse cursors.
where DISK is the partition letter you need to check. Please note, that checking the C: drive may require you to reboot the machine.
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If the issue persists, please contact Acronis Customer Central with a reference to this article.
Disk Diet Recover Disk Space 5 4 100
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