Can't find 31GB file

  • Thread starter Thread starter Dave Smith
  • Start date Start date
D

Dave Smith

I was converting a large video file in Virtual Dub and forgot to set
the compression parameters for the conversion. This resulted in the
program generating a huge filewithout my knowledge. Eventually, I got
an error message that I was out of disk space and the program stalled.
I checked the new file, saved to my desktop, and it was over 31GB,
leaving me with 3GB of space on my C drive. I shift-deleted the file,
but I still seem to have only 3GB of space on the drive instead of
about 35GB that I belive I had before the misadventure. I emptied the
recycle bin and have checked all my directories and cannot locate the
file. None of the directories contains over 9GB of data. I've
restarted the computer to no effect.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
 
Dave said:
I was converting a large video file in Virtual Dub and forgot to set
the compression parameters for the conversion. This resulted in the
program generating a huge filewithout my knowledge. Eventually, I got
an error message that I was out of disk space and the program stalled.
I checked the new file, saved to my desktop, and it was over 31GB,
leaving me with 3GB of space on my C drive. I shift-deleted the file,
but I still seem to have only 3GB of space on the drive instead of
about 35GB that I belive I had before the misadventure. I emptied the
recycle bin and have checked all my directories and cannot locate the
file. None of the directories contains over 9GB of data. I've
restarted the computer to no effect.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Click to expand...

Did you reboot? Not sure if this would be in system restore, but you could
disable SR, reboot and then enable SR.
--
Michael Stevens MS-MVP XP
(e-mail address removed)
http://michaelstevenstech.com
For a better newsgroup experience. Setup a newsreader.
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Did you reboot? Not sure if this would be in system restore, but you could
disable SR, reboot and then enable SR.
Click to expand...

Thanks.

I did a reboot and also shut down and restarted with no change.
Should I really turn off SR before I reboot? Windows says I'll lose
all restore points. Might I need them to solve this problem?
 
Kelly said:
Hmm, I don't understand that logic, Michael. Care to explain? :o)
Click to expand...

You <snipped>

"Not sure if this would be in system restore, but you could
disable SR, reboot and then enable SR."

Why I started with "Not sure", it was an after thought answer. I find SR to
be useful only for restoring after a bad software install, so disabling
would be of little negative consequence. I was thinking of freeing up disk
space with the off chance the aborted file might be archived. I misread the
OP was down to 3MB, not the 3GB he actually had. 8-)

--
Michael Stevens MS-MVP XP
(e-mail address removed)
http://michaelstevenstech.com
For a better newsgroup experience. Setup a newsreader.
http://michaelstevenstech.com/outlookexpressnewreader.htm
 
Ah, ok. And yes, I caught the not sure, part. Just was questioning the
turning off SR. That said, yes removing SR points would clear HD space as
would hiberfil.sys and more. Getting back to SR, many important
issues/downfalls come to play within doing so, and your line of: would be of
little negative consequence, I would have to differ with. However, his
issue didn't seem to lean that way.

That said, hope all goes well for him. Thanks for the reply, Michael. :o)
 
Kelly said:
Ah, ok. And yes, I caught the not sure, part. Just was questioning the
turning off SR. That said, yes removing SR points would clear HD space as
would hiberfil.sys and more. Getting back to SR, many important
issues/downfalls come to play within doing so, and your line of: would be
of little negative consequence, I would have to differ with. However,
his issue didn't seem to lean that way.
Click to expand...

And I felt the same way, deleting restore points have little effect and
should be thought of that way. Anyone that relies on SR as a backup option
is living in a fantasy world. It should be considered the same as any of the
built in Windows utilities, they are lite versions. Like a lite version of
GoBack. SR is very useful for setting restore points when installing new
software, and of limited use when an unexpected software problem crops up
and SR "may" have a valid restore point. SR has saved my butt many times,
and I would always have it enabled.

--
Michael Stevens MS-MVP XP
(e-mail address removed)
http://michaelstevenstech.com
For a better newsgroup experience. Setup a newsreader.
http://michaelstevenstech.com/outlookexpressnewreader.htm
 
Kelly said:
Ah, ok. And yes, I caught the not sure, part. Just was questioning the
turning off SR. That said, yes removing SR points would clear HD space as
would hiberfil.sys and more. Getting back to SR, many important
issues/downfalls come to play within doing so, and your line of: would be of
little negative consequence, I would have to differ with. However, his
issue didn't seem to lean that way.

That said, hope all goes well for him. Thanks for the reply, Michael. :o)
Click to expand...
..
 
Thanks Kelly.

I did as you suggested to no avail. I also did a wildcard (*.*)
search for all files created in the past two days. Found lots of
files, but none over 15MB. Also ran an "Analyze" in Defragmenter. It
showed the drive full (it had been about 1/2 full) and 1/2 fragmented.
The fragmented half must represent the missing file as I defrag
regularly.

I will check the links you provided when I have more time.
 
Dave Smith said:
Thanks Kelly.

I did as you suggested to no avail. I also did a wildcard (*.*)
search for all files created in the past two days. Found lots of
files, but none over 15MB. Also ran an "Analyze" in Defragmenter. It
showed the drive full (it had been about 1/2 full) and 1/2 fragmented.
The fragmented half must represent the missing file as I defrag
regularly.

I will check the links you provided when I have more time.
Click to expand...

I couldn't think of anything that fit your unique situation either. Let us
know if you resolve it.

--
Michael Stevens MS-MVP XP
(e-mail address removed)
http://michaelstevenstech.com
For a better newsgroup experience. Setup a newsreader.
http://michaelstevenstech.com/outlookexpressnewreader.htm
 
Have you run a chkdsk?
Click to expand...

Sorry, I should have said. Yes I did but I really don't know how to
use it other than to run it from Start>Run. It completed but didn't
give me a report.
 
Dave said:
Sorry, I should have said. Yes I did but I really don't know how to
use it other than to run it from Start>Run. It completed but didn't
give me a report.
Click to expand...

Look in even viewer for the chkdsk report.
 
Look in even viewer for the chkdsk report.
Click to expand...

Thanks.

As far as I can see, the report tells me just what I already know.
That over half of my C drive has been eaten by an invisible file. I
uploaded a slightly photoshopped copy of the report to
http://members.cox.net/kprdave/chkdsk.gif If anyone sees a clue in
there, I'd love to hear about it.

I did go to the Microsoft pages suggested by MVP Kelly. There's a lot
of info there and it seems as if some of it might apply to my
situation, but frankly most of it is over my head and if I can't find
a more straight forward cure, I may just have to reformat. I'd hate
to as the computer is running great but it may be the best solution
for me.
 
I suspect you have a hidden partition, possibly running
spyware or a server (you were hacked is my guess, perhaps by
a friend with physical access to the computer) and you
should look for this hidden partition. Perhaps XP disk
management can show it, but you might do well with Partition
Magic or another disk management program.

31 GB is a very big file, but just a nice partition.


--
The people think the Constitution protects their rights;
But government sees it as an obstacle to be overcome.


| On Wed, 22 Sep 2004 17:54:46 -0700, Rock
<[email protected]>
| wrote:
|
| >Dave Smith wrote:
| >> On Wed, 22 Sep 2004 11:10:16 -0400, "GTS" <x> wrote:
| >>
| >>
| >>>Have you run a chkdsk?
| >>
| >>
| >> Sorry, I should have said. Yes I did but I really
don't know how to
| >> use it other than to run it from Start>Run. It
completed but didn't
| >> give me a report.
| >
| >Look in even viewer for the chkdsk report.
|
| Thanks.
|
| As far as I can see, the report tells me just what I
already know.
| That over half of my C drive has been eaten by an
invisible file. I
| uploaded a slightly photoshopped copy of the report to
| http://members.cox.net/kprdave/chkdsk.gif If anyone sees
a clue in
| there, I'd love to hear about it.
|
| I did go to the Microsoft pages suggested by MVP Kelly.
There's a lot
| of info there and it seems as if some of it might apply to
my
| situation, but frankly most of it is over my head and if I
can't find
| a more straight forward cure, I may just have to reformat.
I'd hate
| to as the computer is running great but it may be the best
solution
| for me.
 
I suspect you have a hidden partition, possibly running
spyware or a server (you were hacked is my guess, perhaps by
a friend with physical access to the computer) and you
should look for this hidden partition. Perhaps XP disk
management can show it, but you might do well with Partition
Magic or another disk management program.

31 GB is a very big file, but just a nice partition.
Click to expand...


Thanks for the suggestion. I wish it were that simple. No one else
has access to this machine and I'm sure the culprit is the 31GB video
file I created by mistake and shift+deleted.
 
Have you tried disk cleanup and then defragging?


| On Wed, 22 Sep 2004 22:18:36 -0500, "Jim Macklin"
|
| >I suspect you have a hidden partition, possibly running
| >spyware or a server (you were hacked is my guess, perhaps
by
| >a friend with physical access to the computer) and you
| >should look for this hidden partition. Perhaps XP disk
| >management can show it, but you might do well with
Partition
| >Magic or another disk management program.
| >
| >31 GB is a very big file, but just a nice partition.
|
|
| Thanks for the suggestion. I wish it were that simple.
No one else
| has access to this machine and I'm sure the culprit is the
31GB video
| file I created by mistake and shift+deleted.
 
Have you tried disk cleanup and then defragging?
Click to expand...
Disk cleanup yes. I tried to defrag and got the message that defrag
needs 15% of the total HDD space to operate. Because of the rogue
file, I have much less than that available. I will work on getting
that space freed up when I have some time.

Thanks
 
This is probably overkill, but maybe download a trial copy of
Diskeeper from Executive Software (www.diskeeper.com). When you
do a Disk Analysis, there's a tab "Fragmentation" where you can
get it to show the most fragmented files. Maybe you'll find it
there. There are other utilities out there that will show you
the largest files on your disk. Of course, if the disk space is
really "lost", none of these will help.

Bill
 

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