Hi, I've got a 1tb spare HDD and was using it for a backup drive. I wanted to delete the contents and did so. The usual message of "this file is too big to transfer to the recycle bin, do you want to permanetly delete it" came up and I clicked delete. Now in my computer it's showing that there is still 33gb still being used, but nothing in the drives contents ... what do I do from here to erase everything on that drive ???
Deleting HDD contents
- Thread starter timbo2410
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lol... I guess "format it" will do the trick, but out of interest, the used space may have been due to the contents of an "orphaned" recycle bin linked to a previous Windows installation on your main (system) drive.
If that had been the case, you could have got rid of it by unchecking "Hide protected operating system files" in Folder Options, and simply deleting the entire $RECYCLE.BIN directory on that drive (it's automatically recreated when required).
If that had been the case, you could have got rid of it by unchecking "Hide protected operating system files" in Folder Options, and simply deleting the entire $RECYCLE.BIN directory on that drive (it's automatically recreated when required).
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Checking "Show hidden files" won't display the recycle bin in Explorer, you'd need to uncheck "Hide protected operating system files".
A full format of a 1TB drive will take a few hours... I guess now would be a bad time to tell you that a quick format would have accomplished the same thing in a couple of seconds.
