Empty recycle bin on E: drive

Try: Right click on Recycle Bin, go to Properties. Configure each drive independently. On the E: drive, either disable or make the bin smaller. Windows automatically tries to allocate approximately 10% of EACH drive. If you manage the recycle bin automatically, all drives allocate 10%. If you manage them seperately, you can choose custom sizes.

Open the recycle bin on your desktop.

Change view to "details" and then sort by "original location".

Select those files on the "E:" drive (click the first, use the scroll bar and then hold Shift while you click on the last).

Press Delete.

I had this exact same problem. In SpaceMonger it was showing the $recycle.bin folder taking up tons of space even though I had set the recycle bin settings for that drive to 'delete things right away'. This is how I ended up finally deleting it as it would not show up in Windows Explorer even with hidden files shown.

in CMD...

D:\>rd $recycle.bin /s/q

rd is the command, D is the current location of the cmd 'cursor' and of course $recycle.bin is the folder, /s tells it to also do all subdirectories, and /q tells it to just shut up and delete things without prompting you.

Strangely the first time I ran SpaceMonger after executing this command it still showed up, but in CMD when I tried to browse to the directory it said not found. Then finally SpaceMonger caught up with me.

Do a standard "Disk Cleanup" on that drive:

Right-click on the drive and click "Properties". Select "Disk Cleanup" on the bottom right of the pie graph.

The Disk Cleanup window that opens will list at least one item in a checkbox list that will be the Recycle Bin. Make sure it is checked and click OK.

This batch file works on Win7 x64:

@echo off
if [%1]==[] goto :Usage
if not exist "%1\$RECYCLE.BIN" goto :NotFound

:main
  pushd %1\$RECYCLE.BIN
  echo. Removing contents of %CD%
  for /r %%a in (*) do (
    echo.   %%a
    takeown /f "%%a"
    del /f "%%a"
    )
  popd
  goto :eof

:NotFound
  echo.
  echo. Error: Problem accessing %1\$RECYCLE.BIN.
  echo.
  goto :Usage

:Usage
  echo.
  echo. -=[%~nx0]=- Empty recycle bin for a single drive. Example:
  echo.
  echo. %~n0 E:
  echo.
  goto :eof

There will be errors for files not belonging to the active user profile if they have insuffcient permissions to take ownership (the files won't be removed). Run as administrator to get all users' files.

Empty recycle bin on E: drive

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