I know, I know. The first thing that comes to mind is that a hard drive that claims that it can store X amount of GB's can only really store a certain percent of that.
However, the problem I have isn't that - it just seems that my hard drive is randomly using more space than it should.
I'm running Windows Vista Business, with a 320gb Sata 2 Seagate hard drive. When I use right click > properties on my C Drive, it tells me that I have used up 126GB, when I'm pretty sure I have not. In fact, turned off the hide hidden files view thing, and selected everything in my C Drive and double checked, once again right clicking and going into the properties section. Lo and behold, it tells me that I have only used up 87.2GB.
Now, my first instinct tells me that there is something wrong with my hard drive, and that I need to format it. I've had this problem a while back, and a simple format fixed that. However, I can't format the hard drive this time, as I foolishly didn't partition it properly when I installed Vista, and the supremely long installing time really discourages me from formatting my computer for a meager 30GB of missing space. Having just moved to Vista from XP recently, I'm also not sure about whether or not this is a Vista thing, or not.
I thought about defragmenting my hard drive as a solution, but I'm not sure if that even fixes anything, as to my understanding, defragmenting only makes your hard drive run smoother.
Any solutions would be great; I may have said that 30GB was a meager amount of space, but I'd still like to have my computer running in tip-top condition.
Thanks in advance! (Again)
Edit: Oh yeah. I forgot to add, I'm also open to suggestions of programs that let you partition your harddrive without forcing you to format the whole thing. I've heard of Partition Magic, but not sure if that works with Vista.
However, the problem I have isn't that - it just seems that my hard drive is randomly using more space than it should.
I'm running Windows Vista Business, with a 320gb Sata 2 Seagate hard drive. When I use right click > properties on my C Drive, it tells me that I have used up 126GB, when I'm pretty sure I have not. In fact, turned off the hide hidden files view thing, and selected everything in my C Drive and double checked, once again right clicking and going into the properties section. Lo and behold, it tells me that I have only used up 87.2GB.
Now, my first instinct tells me that there is something wrong with my hard drive, and that I need to format it. I've had this problem a while back, and a simple format fixed that. However, I can't format the hard drive this time, as I foolishly didn't partition it properly when I installed Vista, and the supremely long installing time really discourages me from formatting my computer for a meager 30GB of missing space. Having just moved to Vista from XP recently, I'm also not sure about whether or not this is a Vista thing, or not.
I thought about defragmenting my hard drive as a solution, but I'm not sure if that even fixes anything, as to my understanding, defragmenting only makes your hard drive run smoother.
Any solutions would be great; I may have said that 30GB was a meager amount of space, but I'd still like to have my computer running in tip-top condition.
Thanks in advance! (Again)
Edit: Oh yeah. I forgot to add, I'm also open to suggestions of programs that let you partition your harddrive without forcing you to format the whole thing. I've heard of Partition Magic, but not sure if that works with Vista.
