How to totally delete large file from external hard drive?

Hello. I'm running Windows 8.1 on Dell XPS 8700. I went: Control panel, system and security, file history, system image backup, and saved my system image to the external hard drive. The external hard drive has 931 GB. The system image was a large file, taking up about 200 GB of space.

I right-clicked on it to permanently delete it. Although the file was deleted, now my external hard drive shows that 39 GB are being used even though you can't see any files in there when you plug it in. I'm trying to delete everything and go back to having 931 GB.

I opened command prompt and typed:

diskpart

list disk

From there I see 5 disk. One, disk 1, has a status of online and 1863 GB, which corresponds to the size of my hard drive. Allegedly, "0 B" are free.

Disks 2 - 4 have "no media," no size, and "0 B" free.

Disk 5 is online and and has 931 GB, which corresponds to the size of my external hard drive. Allegedly, "0B" are free.

In command prompt, I typed: select disk 5. It says "Disk 5 is now the selected disk."

I am tempted to write "clean all" and press enter, to see if this frees up those "ghost" 39 GBs and gets the external hard drive's storage back to 931 GB.

Can I do this? I don't want to inadvertently delete the hard drive.

Thanks!

i wouldn't use clean all as that zeros out the drive and will take a long time to complete.

Sometimes deleted files of a USB drive will go to the recycle bin but that will only show up when the drive is attached. If you attach the USB drive and delete everything in the recycle bin does that free up any space. Also make sure the drive is not being used by System Restore. 

0 bytes free is not the amount of free space of a partition. It's the total amount of unallocated space on the drive.

https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/0-bytes-free-showing-in-diskpart.2068277/

I emptied the recycle bin; didn't make a difference.

It's not a USB drive per se. It's an external hard drive.

System restore does not use it.

How long does "clean all" take? You seem to suggest it's safe. Also, could I just type "clean" versus "clean all" to see if that frees up all the space without the operation taking so long?

Again, my concern here is that "clean all" will delete the data on my hard drive, not just the data on my external hard drive.

Edited by utterclue, 03 October 2021 - 10:42 AM.

Use the clean command instead of clean all. Clean all may take a couple of hours on the drive and is not needed. You only need to delete the partition table which is what clean does. Or, you can delete the partition, create a volume, and then format it in Disk Management. If you only use this computer on an OS of Windows 7 or later then I would recommend you also convert the drive to use a GPT partition table as this is more robust than using an MBR

list disk

select disk X   Where X is your external drive

clean

convert GPT

create partition primary

format fs=ntfs quick

assign

exit

I did:

list disk

select disk X

clean

It deleted the external hard drive. Now windows file explorer does not recognize it. I tried unplugging it and plugging it back in and restarting my computer and still nothing.

Can I do anything to get my computer to recognize this external hard drive now?

OK. I followed these instructions and see it again. https://recoverit.wondershare.com/partition-tips/fix-hard-drive-not-showing-up-in-windows-10.html

The only thing that concerns me is that it doesn't say Toshiba any more in file explorer. It says "New Volume." I did paste a file there. So so far so good. We'll see what happens when I try to save the system image again.

It's ridiculous that I had to go through all this to delete everything on it.

So, to bring this full circle, is there a simpler and more direct way of deleting everything on my external hard drive. I don't want to have to do this procedure every time I want to delete everything completely.

You can change the name of the drive to Toshiba. Right click the drive letter in Computer and provide the name in the box.

Windows would not see the drive if you did not complete the steps after clean.

No, if you want to completely wipe everything then you need to do the steps again.

You could boot a live linux distro and delete the the folders Recycle Bin and System Volume Information. That should clear all the data. You can't do this in Windows as those folders are locked. Windows put info in System Volume Information folder. You can see this folder by unhiding System Folders. You will not be able to see how much data is in the folder though.

Basically, the operation above where we "clean" everything is the only thing I understand. The advice about linux distro, admittedly, went over my head.

The problem with this "clean" operation is that, if you clean the external hard drive, you are deleting more than the Windows System image. You are deleting everything else that is on there.

How can I delete only the Windows system image? I know I can right click it and delete it but, again, that leaves invisible files that take up space on the external hard drive.

I know this is kind of going in circles but this is a new problem.

With the clean command you are deleting the partition table which makes Windows see the drive as completely blank. 

When you deleted the image did you hold the shift key while right clicking and selecting delete. This bypasses the recycle bin and deletes the image straight away. The program that created the image should also have an option to delete the image.

By live linux distro I meant something like Mint. This would boot and run from the USB flash drive and only touch the files you want to delete. It's always nice to have because linux does not care about Windows permissions allowing you to delete files and folders Windows locks and it also allows you to copy files to a USB external drive should Windows not boot. Say you have an image but have personal files on the drive since the last image. If Windows fails to boot you can pull the files from the HDD using linux.

https://linuxmint.com/rel_uma_cinnamon_whatsnew.php

With the clean command you are deleting the partition table which makes Windows see the drive as completely blank. 

 

When you deleted the image did you hold the shift key while right clicking and selecting delete. This bypasses the recycle bin and deletes the image straight away. The program that created the image should also have an option to delete the image.

 

By live linux distro I meant something like Mint. This would boot and run from the USB flash drive and only touch the files you want to delete. It's always nice to have because linux does not care about Windows permissions allowing you to delete files and folders Windows locks and it also allows you to copy files to a USB external drive should Windows not boot. Say you have an image but have personal files on the drive since the last image. If Windows fails to boot you can pull the files from the HDD using linux.

 

https://linuxmint.com/rel_uma_cinnamon_whatsnew.php

When I deleted the image, I right-clicked the folder (everything is in a folder) and clicked delete. Windows said that there wasn't enough space in the recycle bin and something along the lines of I would permanently lose the data. That's what I wanted, so I deleted. In short, I deleted this folder like you would any other folder. For some reason, however, there were some GBs left over even though I could not see the folder and apparently no files were in the external hard drive. I only got all the storage back when I did the command discussed above.

Hello. I have a Dell XPS, Windows 10 Home, 64-bit OS.

I'm still working with the same Toshiba external drive. In theory, it has a 1000 GB. I deleted the previous system image by right-clicking it and deleting it. I've done that a couple of times before, so only 784 GB are available. I just ran system image and got an error message. I don't recall what it said, but I think I need to reformat this external drive and get it back to around 1000 GB to be able to successfully save the system image.

I just opened the command prompt and typed "list disk." I got this message: "'List' is not a recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file." I got the same message for "select disk X" and clean.

How do I do this procedure? Also, is there an easier way to do it? Can I just right-click this external drive (I drive), click format, and work from that pop-up window? That window says:

Format New Volume (I:)

Capacity: 931GB

File system: NTFS (Default). ExFAT is the other option

Allocation unit size 4096 bytes (there are other options)

Then there is a "Restore device defaults" button

Under "Volume label," the field says "ok"

Under "Format options," "QuickFormat" is selected

At the bottom, you have buttons for Start and Close

Thanks!!!

Good idea but that option had already been selected.

Sorry about that. I was watching college football and was a little distracted. Now that I unchecked "Hide protected operating system files," there are two folders in there. Is it safe to delete them?