Just curious.....did you do a scandisk on this drive? I have a Maxtor like Dizzie's and the instructions specifically warn against doing scandisk on that drive. Are you connecting your external drive via USB? If so, is it fast enough to run programs. USB 1.1 is not recommended for running programs. Lots of questions....not many answers. I would seriously look at Dizzie's suggestion, especially if you happen to have a Maxtor drive. Really do need more information. You indicated that the same amount of space is taken up that was taken up before. I have a CD reader writer and have found that when I delete something from a CDR disk, it will disappear, but the space is still used. I've never tried the "show hidden files" on these disks, but you might want to try kayjay97 suggestion and see if they show up. Very weird......I'm really hoping you get something to work. It has to be very frustrating.