Freespace Messed with 250GB HD WinXp

[NotSprinkles]

I have a Maxtor 250GB Harddrive. I just got it like two months ago. Installed it and it was working fine. I had to get the windows large disk support, use the Maxtor utilities to format it right. Then I had a problem, non HD related, and I reinstalled windows. Now, Windows says theres only 72.6 GB of free space, and that 161GB is used. Since i just got it and have hardly done anything, theres no way it could have filled up. Besides, when I go into it and check the size of everything, right clicking, seeing space etc, theres only approximately 53.6GB used. Why is it freaking out and saying there is only 72GB left?
I have Windows XP Pro, with SP2. I have the large disk support thing, and I tried fixing it with Partition Magic, but it said that the other space was used, when its not. I tried Defragging, Scandisk, with surface scan, and I cant figure out what to do.

[soundmax]

I think that when you reinstalled windows, you just formatted the drive, with default option which was 126gb.

If partition magic cant fix it then you will need to reinstall windows again...

[Chix4mat]

I would play around with Partition Magic.. try redistribute free space.. see if that helps.

Or, I wonder if your System Restore allowment got turned WAY up for some reason, and is eating a lot of space.

When you say you reinstalled windows, did you format and install, or reinstall overtop of the current installation?

[NotSprinkles]

I didnt format, just reinstalled the windows files...