Used space on freshly formatted HD.

[aman47]

Hi,
The External 250MB, USB HD was freshly formatted and empty. However, there is 71.72 MB of used space shown in Disk Director and Windows Explorer. HD manufacturer confirmed that no software is automatically loaded to HD to provide USB communication, there should be no used space on HD after fresh formatting. Plese help?
Thanks
aman47

[MudCrab]

If you enable viewing of hidden and system files, does anything show on the drive?

I assume the drive is 250GB and not MB.

[aman47]

1. Sorry, it is 250GB.
2. "Show hidden files & folders" is enabled. I run Windows XP and did fresh format using both, Disk Director & Windows Explorer. The result is the same, used space remains on freshly formatted HD.
3. I have used this 250GB HD one time, to cloning my PC’s HD using True Image V-9. I suspect (though not sure) that used space appeared after I fresh formatted HD to erase all files and use HD for a regular backup w/out cloning.
4. I have also separated used space into a separate partition and than merged it with larger partition. Both partition merged but 71.72MB remains on HD clamed as used space.
Thanks for your time and advice in advance.
Aman47

[Brian K]

It's normal. As MudCrab suggested...

{QUOTE-> If you enable viewing of hidden and system files <-QUOTE}
Remove the tick from "Hide protected operating system files".

[aman47]

I did remove check mark but the result is the same 71.72MB of used space.
aman47

[Brian K]

Removing the tick allows you to see the folder. The 71 MB is normal.

[aman47]

The used space is shown with check mark or with out, the result is the same 71.72MB of used space. When you say NORMAL, what is it used for?
Aman47

[USMC RET]

Are you subtracting the free space from 250GB to determine the used space?
If you are, then this is the problem. There is 1024MB in 1GB and Explore and
DD would only report 244.14GB in a 250GB hard drive.

[aman47]

No, I do not. The 250GB is a decimal number, and 232.9 its binary equivalent. Acronis DD shows:
Pri,Act 232.9 GB 232.8GB 71.72 MB NTFS
Windows Explorer shows:
User space:75,194,368 bytes_________71.7 MB
Free space:249,056,509,636 bytes____232 GB
Capacity: 250.056,794,000 bytes____232 GB
Thanks for help in advance.
Aman47

[wtsinnc]

Hello anman47;

The undesignated space can vary slightly, but it's existence following a full format is routine and only a peculiarity of the Windows operating system. In terms of system integrity, it is of no importance and can be deleted with absolutely no negative consequences. If it bothers you (as it does me), you can eliminate it using the open source application GPARTED (link).

http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=115843

[aman47]

wtsinnc,
I do not see how you msg. is related to my qustion. I am looking for an explanation of 71.7mb on newly formated HD. It should be deleted after formating but it is not. I used both, Windows and Acronis DD10 to format HD. I wish Acronis would pick up this thread. Thanks.
Aman47

[wtsinnc]

anman47;

my post regarding your query about unallocated HDD space following a format was an attempt on my part to offer a solution to eliminate the partition.

Please reference the links.

https://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=3516882&SiteID=1

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/225822

As stated yesterday;
The undesignated space can vary slightly, but it's existence following a full format is routine and only a peculiarity of the Windows operating system. In terms of system integrity, it is of no importance and can be deleted with absolutely no negative consequences. If it bothers you (as it does me), you can eliminate it using the open source application GPARTED (link).

GPARTED will eliminate the small partition.

Now do you see how my msg. was related to your question ?

Have a nice day !

[K0LO]

One of you is speaking of apples and the other of oranges. wtsinnc is speaking of unallocated space at the end of the disk but outside of the partition. aman47 is speaking of unused space inside his newly-formatted partition.

wtsinnc: Acronis Disk Director also allows you to resize partitions to include unallocated space at the end of the drive; you don't necessarily have to do this with gParted. But I don't think that aman47 is talking about unallocated space on his drive.

aman47: The used space inside your empty and newly-formatted partition is used by Windows for various purposes. Some of this space is inside the "System Volume Information" folder, which you can't explore while Windows is running, but you can do if from within Disk Director.

As a test, I created a small 500 MB partition and then used XP Disk Management to format the partition. When done, there was 5 MB of used space and 495 MB of unused space in the partition. I did not add any files to the new partition. The 5 MB of used space contains the Master File Table, the System Volume Information folder, and other overhead used by the operating system and by the NTFS file system.

In your case, having 71.7 MB used space out of a 250 GB disk drive does not sound unusual at all.

[GroverH]

A freeware/shareware program which can identify what files are inside the used space is TreeSize available from the lnk below. You can install and see what is folders/programs are displayed.

http://www.jam-software.com/freeware/index.shtml

[jonyjoe81]

Is that used space a seperate partition? If it is you need to merge it with partition right next to it and then make that other partition an active primary partition. This will delete that partition.

If the first partition in a hard drive is not an active primary partition, windows automatically creates a partition before the first partition usually its a 7.8 MB partition but in your case its 70MB.

This partition won't cause any problems, some of my data hard drives have them but there easy to remove.