Help me find recycle bin! (1 Viewer)

[sandersen]

I use an old laptop's 30GB hard drive encased in a box to store and transfer files. As it was once installed in a computer it still has all of the programs on it, and I just realised that as I was deleting things they must have been going into the 'Recycle Bin' of the hard drive, not the computer I was using, resulting in me having no space left on the drive. How can I find and empty the bin? I have looked, but am not particularly computer literate.
If it helps, folders such as WINDOWS, Program Files and Documents and Settings are still on the hard drive.
Please help!

 

[mr_brightside]

=\.....um...okay....

Better idea.
Right click on the drive -> Format
This will erase all data on the drive.

 

[sandersen]

Ahh no. Although that could be a last resort... there is stuff on there like my father's MYOB stuff that he apparently can't move onto his current computer for fear that it won't work.
Isn't there a place for the recycle bin that I can't find because I'm blind?

 

[mr_brightside]

okay...no....

What you've done is taken a hard drive from an existing computer and started using it as a data/backup drive. This means there is still an OS (operating system eg windows) still present on this drive.

A hard drive does not have a "Recycle Bin".

If your not going to be using this drive in the laptop anymore.
Take all the data you want saved off it.
Then format it to remove the OS.

 

[sandersen]

OK. You make sense. But where did my files go when i attemted to delete them?

That's what's confusing me!

 

[mr_brightside]

OK. You make sense. But where did my files go when i attemted to delete them?

That's what's confusing me!

Are you actually deleting them? or just "move all its contents to Recycle bin"

To delete something, hold shift, then select delete. This will permanetly delete the data.

 

[sandersen]

I wasn't holding down shift, just highlighting all and pressing delete button. I'll remember the shift thing though!
All i know is there should have been a hundred mb of space free on the disk when I deleted some files, but I can't find them in my normal computer's hard drive and there is no space on the disk.