Can't format partition

I just did a fresh install of Windows 7, and during the setup, I split things into two partitions. One is small, and the rest goes onto a second one—it's a 120GB SSD. Up until yesterday, that second partition was showing 100GB of 100GB free. Then, suddenly, it dropped to 99GB free. I wanted to see what swallowed that extra gigabyte, so I toggled the setting to show hidden files in Explorer, but when I click on the partition, it looks completely empty. To make matters worse, I tried formatting it, but the system won't let me; it says the drive is currently in use. The thing is, I'm not even looking at it or doing anything with it right now. I already downloaded Process Explorer and Autoruns, ran a full VirusTotal scan through the built-in tools, and everything came back clean. What's going on here?

Did you go into your Explorer settings and check the boxes to show "hidden" and "system" files?
You're probably looking for things like the "Recycle Bin," "System Volume Information," and maybe some random "update" files too.

Nothing was showing up. I wasn't.

All sorted. Turns out it was just a swap file issue. I totally forgot to toggle the setting to show system files. Now I’ve run into a similar "problem." I have a 32GB USB drive, and when I format it using FAT32, it shows something like 31.92GB of 31.92GB free. But if I switch over to NTFS, it claims there's about 15MB missing. Is that actually normal?

Is this some random Chinese person from eBay?
32GB should show about 29.4 GB free after you format it.

Assuming the drive itself isn't faulty—and I agree with wiredcyclist82 on that—you have to account for the fact that the file system and cluster size (the smallest unit of storage) take up a chunk of space. It eats into your total capacity. Using NTFS takes up slightly more room than other formats, but you get much better data management, security, and a few other perks in return. If you actually meant 15 MB of lost space on a 32 GB drive, that’s a tiny fraction. That loss is almost certainly just the overhead from how the file system organizes everything.

wiredcyclist82 said:Is this some random Chinese person from eBay?
32GB should show about 29.4 GB free after you format it.

I think you're right. I was just throwing out numbers from memory.

darkowl72 said:Assuming the drive itself isn't faulty—and I agree with wiredcyclist82 on that—you have to account for the fact that the file system and cluster size (the smallest unit of storage) take up a chunk of space. It eats into your total capacity. Using NTFS takes up slightly more room than other formats, but you get much better data management, security, and a few other perks in return. If you actually meant 15 MB of lost space on a 32 GB drive, that’s a tiny fraction. That loss is almost certainly just the overhead from how the file system organizes everything.

Does FAT32 even have any kind of organizational structure? I'm seeing some weird discrepancies. When I check a drive formatted with FAT32, it tells me it's 100% free. But when I switch to NTFS with a 512b cluster size, it claims I'm missing about 15MB. Specifically, out of 29.4GB, it says only 29.385GB is free. I've run every malware scanner and tool I own, but I can't find a single trace of anything suspicious.

Got a 32 GB drive with all my important stuff on it, but I just dug up a 16 GB one instead.
NTFS format:
Used 69.1 MB, free 14.3 GB
FAT32 format:
Used 12 KB, free 14.4 GB.
darkowl72 already gave you the full breakdown, nothing left to say.

Jeffrey Allen92 said:I think you're right. I was just throwing out numbers from memory.

Does FAT32 even have any kind of organizational structure? I'm seeing some weird discrepancies. When I check a drive formatted with FAT32, it tells me it's 100% free. But when I switch to NTFS with a 512b cluster size, it claims I'm missing about 15MB. Specifically, out of 29.4GB, it says only 29.385GB is free. I've run every malware scanner and tool I own, but I can't find a single trace of anything suspicious.

Of course it does. It’s just that its overhead takes up way less space than NTFS because it's simpler and offers fewer features and security options.

Well, if that’s the case, then we're good. Honestly, I was starting to freak out thinking I had some massive malware infection or something. I was worried that when I shrunk the clusters down to just 512b, something might have managed to wedge itself into the boot sector, whereas at 2048b on FAT32, there was enough room for it to hide (this is my Windows installation USB, by the way). I've got this nagging paranoia that I'm reinstalling a pre-infected OS every single time. Plus, I can't figure out why my ntldr isn't showing up.

Since none of these anti-virus tools are picking up a thing, my only conclusion is that someone is messing with me using some kind of script. I tried disabling Windows scripting by tweaking the registry keys, but that didn't do a thing. Even as I'm typing this, I logged into the forum, but after one refresh I was logged out, and then the next refresh I was logged back in again. It's weird.

Anyway, thanks for the help!