Cannot find 230 Gb <unknown> files

[Ralph IB]

My C Drive is 288 Gb and has 15 Gb of known files, 23 Gb free and 230 Gb of
what WinDirStat lists as <unknown> files.

My setup is:
HP m8150n with Intel Viiv Intel Core2 Quad Processor Q6600 (2.4 GHz)
Windows Vista Ultimate
3 Gb PC2-5300 DDR2 SDRAM
NVIDIAGeForce 8400 SEgraphics
640 Gb 7200RPM SATA HD
C Drive 288 Gb
D Drive Restore 9 Gb with 8 Gb full; 1 Gb free
E Drive 298 Gb

Several days ago I received message that C Drive is full. I checked and it
had 287.5 Gb full with 500 Mb free. I moved Pictures, Video & Music to my E
Drive and now have 23 Gb free.

When I check each folder, the total of all is 15 Gb. The C Drive shows 23
Gb free. Nothing else shows up in folders, definitely not the 230 Gb of
unknown files.

I ran Disk Cleanup, Defrag, went to Comd Prompt & ran chkdsk /f c:; went to
Organize/Folder/View and checked "Show hidden files" & unchecked "Hide
extensions" & "Hide protected OS".

Set Restore Points at 2 Gb max.

Ran Disk Cleanup again and ran WinDirStat. I still have 230 Gb listed as
<unknown>.

I cannot see them on my C Drive, so I don't know what kind of files they
are. This group only shows up in WinDirStat, but obviously they are taken up
because I only have 23 Gb free.

Any ideas on how I can "view" these unknown files so I can determine if and
how I can delete them? Any programs out there, other than WinDirStat, that
might help me identify them?

 

[Richie Hardwick]

My C Drive is 288 Gb and has 15 Gb of known files, 23 Gb free and 230 Gb of
what WinDirStat lists as <unknown> files.

Does Windows - not WinDirStat - show only 23GB free?

What does your C drive look like in Disk Management?

Have you run any malware detection/removal programs?

Richie Hardwick

 

[Ralph IB]

My responses are below. Thanks, Richie.

--
Ralph IB
Don''''t take life too seriously; you''''re not going to get out of it alive
anyway.

Does Windows - not WinDirStat - show only 23GB free?

Yes, it shows the same data as WinDirStat, except it shows nothing of the
230 Gb missing.

What does your C drive look like in Disk Management?

It says the C drive is healthy. I did a check when I got the "disk full"
message.

Have you run any malware detection/removal programs?

I have Windows Live OneCare and run virus/spyware checks regularly. But I
ran it again, as well as Disk Clean and Defrag, when this problem popped up.

 

[Richie Hardwick]

My responses are below. Thanks, Richie.

Do you have a recent backup - just in case? I have multiple backups
so I can get "crazy" if need be.

If it were my machine, I would try turning off Volume Shadow Copy (I
think one effect of that is that that it will dump your one Restore
Point) and reboot to see what happens.

You can find it in Admin Tools, Services.

I would switch to the "super" admin account

http://lifehacker.com/341521/enable-vistas-administrator-account

And would enable showing all hidden and system files.

I would then delete (if it is still there) the System Volume
Information folder. If it won't delete, try it in Safe Mode.

Reboot and see what it all looks like.

Richie Hardwick

 

[Richie Hardwick]

Do you have a recent backup - just in case? I have multiple backups
so I can get "crazy" if need be.

If it were my machine, I would try turning off Volume Shadow Copy (I
think one effect of that is that that it will dump your one Restore
Point) and reboot to see what happens.

You can find it in Admin Tools, Services.

I would switch to the "super" admin account

http://lifehacker.com/341521/enable-vistas-administrator-account

And would enable showing all hidden and system files.

I would then delete (if it is still there) the System Volume
Information folder. If it won't delete, try it in Safe Mode.

Reboot and see what it all looks like.

I just checked out WinDirStat.

It should show you where all those "unknown files" are - as in what
folder.

You can't just delete it?

Richie Hardwick

 

[DevilsPGD]

In message <[email protected]> Ralph IB

Yes, it shows the same data as WinDirStat, except it shows nothing of the
230 Gb missing.

Have you tried launching WinDirStat elevated to administrator
privileges? (Right click on windirstat.exe and choose the "Run as
Administrator" option)

My understanding is that the "<unknown>" designation in WinDirStat is
simply the difference between the files WinDirStat was able to count and
the total space that Windows reports is being used.

The missing space could be shadow copies, or other files you're unable
to access due to NTFS permissions. Running as an administrator will
expose some although not all of these files.

 

[Wandering]

If the missing space is shadow copies, and the trash can, and such, you can
simply forget about it. It is not missing. It's being used for a valuable
purpose that will have no effect on your use. As soon as you need any of
that space, Windows will make it available for you, without you doing
anything at all. If you need more space than you have, it will delete older
shadow copies as required. If you attempt to delete something that uses more
than the limit of the trash, it will delete older items to make room. You
don't have to do anything about it.

I would not turn off shadow copying, because more than many times it has
saved my bacon by having a file I had deleted long ago, and then discovered
I still needed it. You can delete all but the most recent set and the most
recent restore point in Disk Cleanup if you wish. But there really is no
point to it.

Good luck

 

[Ralph IB]

I do have backups. After having 23 Gb free for the past 3 or 4 days, tonight
I got another "Disk Full" message. I looked and had 4 Mb free space!

I did not know I could run WinDirStat as Administrator. I did that and,
sure enough, it showed all the files. It listed 264.3 Gb as Windows files.
Breaking that down, 248.9 Gb are temp files. Most of these have been created
in October and this month. 6 of those files are 781.0 Mb. 6 are 699.5 Mb.
Then many at 400.2 Mb. These are all recent files. But the files have been
accumulating for a year (when I purchased this system).

I tried to delete one of the files and got the following warning: "Do you
know what you are doing? You are going to remove
c:\Windows\temp\TMP000001AC20F5242FC17BDF90 from your computer. Deletion of
system files or directories can seriously damage your system. Continue?"

I cancelled it and will ask you all for advice. Would I damage my pc by
deleting these temporary system files?

Thanks for all the advice.

 

[Richie Hardwick]

I cancelled it and will ask you all for advice. Would I damage my pc by
deleting these temporary system files?

Delete EVERY ONE of them.

You said you have backups.

Richie Hardwick

 

[Ralph IB]

Thanks, Richie and everyone. I will do it.

But I'm not sure this will end the madness. Since something is causing this
to happen much more often over the past couple of months, and many of the
files have times that are in the middle of the night....and even several
times during the night (and I always shut down my pc when I am finished for
the day), I wonder what is causing this? It seems to me that I need to find
that out and how to stop it.

Halloween has passed, so I can't blame it on the goblins.

 

[Richie Hardwick]

Thanks, Richie and everyone. I will do it.

But I'm not sure this will end the madness. Since something is causing this
to happen much more often over the past couple of months, and many of the
files have times that are in the middle of the night....and even several
times during the night (and I always shut down my pc when I am finished for
the day), I wonder what is causing this? It seems to me that I need to find
that out and how to stop it.

You have a program running that is doing that. You need to stop ALL
startup programs that are running (msconfig) and see if that helps.

If you can't find the problem, you will need to reinstall Windows to
stop it, I'm afraid.

Richie Hardwick