Missing HDD space.

Missing about 50GB (well, 36GB "When a Byte is not a Byte") of space on my laptops hard drive disk. No, this isn't a Lenovo so it's not being assigned for RRBackup. Shadowstorage reveals nothing useful. Disk Management reveal a similar story.

Any ideas? Fresh Windows 7 install, by the way, so it's not Recycle Bin or Temp. file trash. It's not hidden file stuff either (which would still be included in DM anyway, I think).

Sounds like a recovery partition. Google is your friend.

I think it's a recovery partition as well, but should it really be 36 GB? That sounds a bit excessive.

Sounds like a recovery partition. Google is your friend.

I did. Checked numerous ways with some answers from Google.

I think it's a recovery partition as well, but should it really be 36 GB? That sounds a bit excessive.

I don't think so either...oddly enough it moved from Windows XP to Windows 7 when I installed it fresh today.

Diskpart would show a recovery partition...and it does. 1GB exactly? Unless the system allocates that much space for something else...which it might (I don't know much about this).

Possible Causes
1. Recovery Partition of 50GB
2. They put a smaller harddisk in your PC than advertised
3. 50GB of back blocks
4. FAT table is seriously damaged

Possible Causes
1. Recovery Partition of 50GB
2. They put a smaller harddisk in your PC than advertised
3. 50GB of back blocks
4. FAT table is seriously damaged

Doesn't seem to be 1. It's definitely not 2 (this wasn't an issue until now, laptop isn't new).

Could be 3 or 4. Though wouldn't it be giving me some kind of error during a chkdsk if the allocation units were bad?

Doesn't seem to be 1. It's definitely not 2 (this wasn't an issue until now, laptop isn't new).

Could be 3 or 4. Though wouldn't it be giving me some kind of error during a chkdsk if the allocation units were bad?

If you perform a quick format, it doesn't do a disk check.
Are you missing 50GB as in missing 50GB from a partition, missing 50GB from free space, or missing 50GB from the disk itself as a whole?

If you perform a quick format, it doesn't do a disk check.
Are you missing 50GB as in missing 50GB from a partition, missing 50GB from free space, or missing 50GB from the disk itself as a whole?

The latter of the three, or all of them if you want to put it that way. It's literally disappeared from everything that I can think of to check.

The latter of the three, or all of them if you want to put it that way. It's literally disappeared from everything that I can think of to check.

Did you check to see if there was unpartitioned free space lying around? X_X
Unless like a part of your HDD platter shattered... or if it became damaged somehow, I don't really know how this can happen.

Have you tried completely reformatting your HDD to see if your space problem still persists? Since you're using a fresh copy of W7, the stuff currently on the HDD shouldn't be much of an issue... I think.

Screwed up RAM can result in this.
I lost about 1/2 a TB on a 2 TB drive to that.

Screwed up RAM can result in this.
I lost about 1/2 a TB on a 2 TB drive to that.

Yeah that's also possible, had it too once (lost 200GB on 1TB HD), but then the data itself gets erased, and you have a lot of (more) free space available.

The problem is that he has 50GB too few on his total max drive size, which has magically dissapeared into nothingness. It's not the data itself that he has lost.

P.S. Did I really write "3. 50GB of back blocks", haha what a terrible double typo, I meant bad blocks offcourse!

Btw, try to get a visual drive scanner (that shows the data on the disc as a graphic), maybe you see a large chunk of bad blocks there. Indentified Bad Blocks get deducted from your total hardisk size, to avoid programs writing data there.

Yeah that's also possible, had it too once (lost 200GB on 1TB HD), but then the data itself gets erased, and you have a lot of (more) free space available.

No, bad RAM can result in the disk actually reporting the wrong size. I didn't lose any data, it was blank already. It just couldn't properly gauge how much space it had because the RAM was wonky.

I actually replaced the drive thinking it was hopelessly corrupt before realizing it was the RAM, and as soon as I replaced the RAM the HD reported correctly again and worked perfectly.

Now running a memory test is pretty much my first step for misbehaving machines. A litle bad RAM can make pretty much anything happen.