You were right. i isolated the volumes and checked the plist file and the time machine was writing my backups to my volumes folder. I had to set up another user for the security clearance to delete the files and then delete the plist file. thanks for you help. 320GB recovered!
I discovered through running my "What size" program that over 300gb of space is used up in my "volume" folder. I am a bit new to the mac and I do not know what this folder is for. I am guess by looking at it that it is some kind of back up thing, but I already back up onto an external drive...
