Disconnected USB drive during NTFS file transfer, will space be reclaimed?

Question

I have a NTFS external drive that I was transfering a large file to. The transfer appeared to be hanging, so I pulled the USB connection. Is the file system smart enough to reclaim the disk space for future storage?

What about when I'm doing it from an external to an NTFS file system that the OS controls? Will the OS clean the disk space?

Answer 1

Yes, though disconnecting a drive while being actively written to will lead to corruption.

You should run a chkdsk on the drive before using it further.

Go to My Computer, right click the drive, select properties, tools, and Disk Check (in Windows).