Please Help.... Space Missing from hard drive

[influence]

Ok... Let me start from the beginning..

I was trying to back-up some of my files in from my computer by creating a backup file.
I had the info copying into a drive dedicated for backup.. Approximately 15 gig drive.
Well, during the process it stopped and told me that there wasnt enough space on the drive to complete the process. So, I canceled it.
Then I proceeded to delete every file off of the back-up drive.
Now this drive should be completely empty... I see no files.
But the drives capacity is only 13.3now..
I seemed to have lost 1.7 gigs of space on this drive and I dont know what is eating it up.
I even tried to do a error-check in properties of the drive and Windows found issues and supposedly cleaned them up... But I am still missing the 1.7 Gig of space taken up by nothing that I can see..
Also when I click on properties it shows 1.7 gigs being "used".

Please help...
Thanks

[alc6379]

Is this drive set up as the drive where the paging file resides?

That could account for the space consumption. Otherwise, you might want to reformat the drive to regain the space. If you cannot format the drive because it says it's in use, I'd seriously suspect your paging file is on that drive.

[influence]

Is this drive set up as the drive where the paging file resides?

That could account for the space consumption. Otherwise, you might want to reformat the drive to regain the space. If you cannot format the drive because it says it's in use, I'd seriously suspect your paging file is on that drive.

It will not let me format the drive.
How do I find out if my paging files are on it?
How did they get on it if they werent there before?

It says: "Windows cannor format this drive. Quit any disk utilities or other programs that are using this drive, and make sure that no window is displaying the contents of the drive. Then try formatting again."

I see nothing in the drive and nothing else is running.

Im lost...

[caperjack]

Open the drive in mycomputer and go to tool/folder options/view to check to see it its set to show hidden files and folders .
Also i would right click on mycomputer/properties /system restore /and make sure system restore is not checked on this drive .

[influence]

Open the drive in mycomputer and go to tool/folder options/view to check to see it its set to show hidden files and folders . Also i would right click on mycomputer/properties /system restore /and make sure system restore is not checked on this drive .

I clicked show hidden files and it shows nothing.
Sytem restore is not checked....
Thank you both for your help so far, It still gives me hope.

[dlh6213]

To see what's there, you need to also uncheck 'Hide protected operating system files (Recommended)' Then you will be able to see Page files, Swap files, Recycle Bin, and anything else in there. You should remember to 'recheck' it when you're done.

I had a similar problem back in November, and alc6379 suggested this (and it worked):

Try booting to the recovery console on your Windows XP CD. If you can get into it that way, you won't be using any swap space, and should be able to format it.

Thanks Alex!

[dlh6213]

To see what's there, you need to also uncheck 'Hide protected operating system files (Recommended)' Then you will be able to see Page files, Swap files, Recycle Bin, and anything else in there. You should remember to 'recheck' it when you're done.

I had a similar problem back in November, and alc6379 suggested this (and it worked):

Try booting to the recovery console on your Windows XP CD. If you can get into it that way, you won't be using any swap space, and should be able to format it.

Thanks Alex!

Some words of caution on my last post:

First, make sure you have everything important to you backed up on some media outside of the computer (CD's, flash drive, external hard drive, etc.); you never know what could go wrong.

I don't know how many drives/partitions you have on this computer, but when you use the Recovery Console to format, your drive letters will most likely be off by one letter. For instance, if you choose e:\, that will probably be what you commonly know as your 'f' drive. Before you format any drive, use the dir (Directory) command to be sure the drive you are about to format is indeed the one you want formatted.

The Directory command would look like this:
e:\>dir Then, when you hit Enter, the contents of the drive will be listed. The one you are looking to format should only have a couple of small files listed.