Windows 10: Disk full with unknown data

I have a Windows 10 laptop with a 237GB disk. FileExplorer says that 21.GB are free.In WinDirStat, I see that 101,8GB are reserved by <Unknown>.1. What and where is this <Unknown>?2. Is it possible to free the space in <Unknown>?It is frustrating to try constantly to clean up the disk, where I could use these 101.8GB occupied by <Unknown>.

:)

 

Windows 10: Unknown System (Z Partition or Disk.

Hi Leonardo,

There are several factors why you see unknown system partition or disk in your computer. It can be a recovery partition. For us to better assist you, we'd like to gather more information:

• What troubleshooting steps have you done so far?
• When did this issue occur?

Meanwhile, we suggest to follow these steps:

• Open a Command Prompt as admin.
• Type in diskpart.
• Type list volumes.
• Find out which volume shows as your drive E: then type select volume N, where N is the number that the volume was given.
• Double-check that you're on the right volume, type in "list volume" and check where the asterisk is. If it's beside the volume you wish to change, then good, if not you'll need to do "select volume N" again.
• When you're sure you're on the right volume, type in remove letter=E.
• Check it has been done by typing "list volume" to see the results.
• Close the command prompt window.
  

It will let you remove that partition.

Let us know if you need further assistance.

 

Lost data from hard drive, what to do now?

Well, I'm sorry to hear that it's a WD My Passport that failed on you, @tomhenry ! *Frown
I'd recommend you to try using a different USB cable with it and see if that will help your system to detect it without it disconnecting.
I'd also suggest you to go to Disk Management and see how the drive is listed there. It won't hurt to check up on the health and SMART status of the HDD by running the QUICK and EXTENDED tests from the WD's Data LifeGuard Diagnostics. Here's a link to the available software: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=11ZOpD

Give these troubleshooting steps a try and keep us posted with the results!
SuperSoph_WD

 

how to convert Dynamic disk to Basic disk without data loss ?

Hi,

The process of conversion is quite tricky but not exactly that complicated. Suggested safe is to have your data cloned and work on the clone instead of the original. This suggestions and steps were provided by one of the Microsoft Community Forum MVP's,
John John__ in his response on this thread. Follow the steps carefully
to be able to avoid data loss.

I hope it helps. If you have any other concerns, don't hesitate to come back to us.