5GB of files on a 80GB HD with 700Mb free?!?!?!

[Joseph Wind]

My teenage cousin asked me to look at his recently crashed computer. A
Compaq Presario 6000 with an 80GB HD, running on Windows XP Home. On bootup
it gave errors reading, "missing or corrupt files: windows\system32\..." I
tried to repair option from the Original Windows XP Home CD, but it would
lock up the keyboard requesting some other CD. I pulled the drive out
mounted it in my diag system. I discovered that there were about 35,000
files using only 5GB of space, but there is only 700Mb of free space. I
tried to look for extremely large files like DVD rips or Mpegs, to find none
over 10Mb, except for the pagefile. I did find about 100 malware files,
which were promptly removed. I've cleared out the temp files and Internet
caches. I've run CHKDSK a couple times, but it still not change. I've also
re-installed the OS without re-formatting but it still shows the same thing.
I've

Before going the trouble of reformatting the HD and reinstalling the OS, is
there any way to find out what's eating up all the space? I guess it's
better to start with a clean plate, than with a dirty one.

Any help would greatly be appreciated.

Thanks in Advance,

JW

 

[Wesley Vogel]

System Restore?

C:\System Volume Information

How the System Restore Tool Handles Hard-Disk Space Usage
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;300044

Stolen from Kelly Microsoft-MVP Windows® XP
2004 Windows MVP "Winny" Award

[[If you do not use hibernation, make sure you do not have it enabled, which
reserves disk space equal to your RAM. If you have a hidden file on the root
directory of your C-drive called hiberfil.sys, hibernation is enabled.

To remove that file, go to Display Properties, Screensaver, Power, Hibernate
tab, and uncheck the Enable hibernation box.

You can delete the following files to save disk space:

C:\Windows\System32\dllcache\*.*
C:\Windows\driver cache\i386\driver.cab
C:\Windows\inf\*.pnf ]]


How to Locate and Correct Disk Space Problems on NTFS Volumes in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=315688

Windows XP Does Not Recognize All Available Disk Space
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-gb;316505

--
Hope this helps. Let us know.

Wes
MS-MVP Windows Shell/User

In