Windows 10: External hard drive has lost most of its capacity

When I first installed my WD 2.0TB external hard drive 2 weeks ago on my Windows 10 HP Pavilion using my I Insignia docking station, it showed 1.81 TB of storage space. Now it shows only 34 GB. What did I do wrong? How can I get the full storage back?

:)

 

Capacity of external system image hard drive

In creating a system image, what capacity hard drive the backup must be saved on?
Should the capacity of the external hard drive equal or exceed that of the source drive?

In the event of a system crash, how is the operating system restored with the system image created?

 

External Hard Drive

Hi John,

We suggest that you try the troubleshooting steps below:

• Open your External Hard Drive file in File Explorer.
• Type the name of the file you want to search on the search box and click Enter.

The file will show up in Search Results and you will be able to move it to the correct folder.

Let us know if you need further help.

 

Lost storage capacity on external hard drive after recovery setup

Hello Joe,

Thank you for contacting Microsoft Community.

We understand the inconvenience you have experienced. Let us know few things to assist you.

• When you say "performing a recovery setup", you mean to say creating a Recovery drive for Windows 10?
• Is that External drive is empty or does it contain anything?
• If it contains nothing, then did you tried performing a disk format?
• How and looking where did you confirm the drive capacity as 32 GB?
• Did you check the capacity of the drive by connecting to another computer?

Give us above details to assist you better.