Can't find 31GB file

[Kelly]

Thanks for the reply, Michael. Am not sure he was banking on it as a back
up option. Seems it only came up when you mentioned it. Either
way......hope all goes well for him. )

 

[Kelly]

Hi Dave,

Go to Start/Run and type in: services.msc
From there scroll down to Indexing. It should be set to Manual, but stop
the service. Reboot.

In addition: Run this script.

AVI Search Remove (Line 74)
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_tweaks.htm

To specify log size and overwrite options, follow these steps:

Click Start, and then click Control Panel. Click Performance and
Maintenance, then click Administrative Tools, and then double-click Computer
Management. Or, open the MMC containing the Event Viewer snap-in.

In the console tree, expand Event Viewer, and then right-click the log in
which you want to set size and overwrite options.

Under Log size, type the size that you want in the Maximum log size box.
Under When maximum log size is reached, click the overwrite option that you
want.

"If you want to clear the log contents, click Clear Log."

Click OK.

Good luck and keep us posted.

 

[Jeff]

Have you tried locating the huge file using Diskview? Get it from
http://www.diskview.com

 

[Jim Carlock]

Can you open a command prompt?

Go to a command prompt and type in:

cd <path to folder where you think the file is>
dir /os

... <look through the list of files>

If the file isn't in the above list, try:

dir /os /ah

... <look through the list of files>

The last file to be displayed should give you the length
biggest file. If that looks like the 30+GB file, then you
can delete it from the command prompt.
If the file happens to be a hidden file, type in the following:
attrib <fileName> -r -s -h
Then type in:
del <fileName>

Hope that helps.

--
Jim Carlock
http://www.microcosmotalk.com/
Post replies to the newsgroup.

Have you tried disk cleanup and then defragging?

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

 

[Dave Smith]

Can you open a command prompt?

Go to a command prompt and type in:

cd <path to folder where you think the file is>
dir /os

... <look through the list of files>

If the file isn't in the above list, try:

dir /os /ah

... <look through the list of files>

The last file to be displayed should give you the length
biggest file. If that looks like the 30+GB file, then you
can delete it from the command prompt.
If the file happens to be a hidden file, type in the following:
attrib <fileName> -r -s -h
Then type in:
del <fileName>

Hope that helps.

Thanks Jim, I gave it a shot. When I looked in C:\Documents and
Settings\Dave\Desktop where the file was originally saved, only the
files I can see in Windows are displayed and the "lost" file is not,
so does this mean that the file definitely was removed from that
directory? When I enter dir /os /ah it says "File not found." When
I look in just C:\ files and directories on C:\ are displayed and it
shows that I have only 2.2GB of space open so I guess the file really
does exist somewhere but is somehow invisible. Does that make sense?

I'm as sure as I can be that the lost space is due to the deleted
file as the loss occurred right after the deletion and the missing
space is the same as the size of the file.

 

[Dave Smith]

Have you tried locating the huge file using Diskview? Get it from
http://www.diskview.com

Thanks.

Interesting but no go. Diskview shows a total of 22GB on C:\ but says
I have only 2.2GB free of my 60GB drive. I can't find the file by
sorting in any of the options.

 

[R. McCarty]

Could you have used BootVis recently, it's logging can sometimes
make finding the .Bin files difficult.

 

[Jim Carlock]

When I looked in C:\Documents and Settings\Dave\Desktop
where the file was originally saved, only the files I can see in
Windows are displayed and the "lost" file is not, so does this
mean that the file definitely was removed from that directory?
When I enter dir /os /ah it says "File not found." When I look
in just C:\ files and directories on C:\ are displayed and it
shows that I have only 2.2GB of space open so I guess the
file really does exist somewhere but is somehow invisible.
Does that make sense?

Ok, first, the dir command is a file and directory listing tool.
With dir /ah you are asking to see hidden files. Based upon
what you are saying about the dir /os /ah command, there
are no hidden files in that particular folder.

I see someone has already suggested using the XP cleanup
wizard... so I'm not sure if this will help, but it's worth a try,
go into the Control Panel, click on Internet Options and
Delete the files in the Internet cache, make sure you put a
checkmark in the Delete all offline content.

Also, if someone hasn't suggested Search, you can try that
and use the advanced options to turn on searching folders,
hidden and system files and then you can search the whole
HDD for a file greater than 20,000,000.

If that doesn't work, things are looking pretty grim... but
sometimes the Search above does NOT search everything
you tell it to and holds a disfunctional mentality that
Microsoft put into it on purpose, went through extra special
efforts, and defend by claiming it's a feature. Go figure.

Let us know if that doesn't work.

 

[Dave Smith]

Could you have used BootVis recently, it's logging can sometimes
make finding the .Bin files difficult.

Thanks but nope.

 

[Dave Smith]

Ok, first, the dir command is a file and directory listing tool.
With dir /ah you are asking to see hidden files. Based upon
what you are saying about the dir /os /ah command, there
are no hidden files in that particular folder.

I see someone has already suggested using the XP cleanup
wizard... so I'm not sure if this will help, but it's worth a try,
go into the Control Panel, click on Internet Options and
Delete the files in the Internet cache, make sure you put a
checkmark in the Delete all offline content.

Also, if someone hasn't suggested Search, you can try that
and use the advanced options to turn on searching folders,
hidden and system files and then you can search the whole
HDD for a file greater than 20,000,000.

If that doesn't work, things are looking pretty grim... but
sometimes the Search above does NOT search everything
you tell it to and holds a disfunctional mentality that
Microsoft put into it on purpose, went through extra special
efforts, and defend by claiming it's a feature. Go figure.

Let us know if that doesn't work.

Thanks very much Jim.

I did try all the things you suggested. I re-did the cache clear and
checked the hidden box as I don't think I'd done that.

I really appreciate your help with the DOS search as I wanted to try
that and didn't know how.

If nothing else, this will induce me to finally get a DVD-R drive to
prepare if I need to reformat. Hmmm. Maybe it IS a feature!

 

[Jim Carlock]

What about letting ScanDisk run on it?

I was trying to avoid this next technique... it is again
DOS, there is a switch /s for the dir command that
will tell it to parse every subdirectory (or folder as
most people call them), the only problem is that IF
there are a lot of files on the system, it could be a
very long list of files to stare through... I would not
be able to pull this off on my system... Type the
following:

1) This will go through every unhidden file on the C:
drive (I assume the C: drive):

CD \
dir *.* /s /p

The /s switch means all subfolders, the *.* means all
files, the /p switch means view one page at a time.

You could set the properties for the DOS prompt
up to display 100000 lines if needed and avoid using
the /p switch, as the /p switch makes things very long
and tedious to go through using your eyes and patience.

2) The following will display all hidden files:
CD \
dir /s /ah

That should be pretty easy to work and view and you
might not need the /p switch there, so I left it out.
Again you can set the properties for the DOS window
to display 100000 lines if you so desire. I usually have
my DOS prompt set to display 5000 lines.

If you know where your Temporary Internet Files are
stored you can navigate to that folder using DOS. Or
you can type in the following:

CD "%UserProfile%\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files"
dir/ah

You will see four funky named folders, and you can try the
following:

DEL <foldername>

where <foldername> is the name of the folder as displayed
in the list. Do that for each folder. Who knows? Maybe it's
another "feature" that deleting Internet Files in the MS
approved manner...

That'll give you something to do. I'll suggest messing
with the dir command and the /p /s switches. They're
pretty intuitive. You can use CTRL+C on the keyboard
to break out of a dir listing at any time.

 

[Jim Carlock]

Oh, I left out a couple things:

The Temporary Internet Files are almost always
tagged as hidden files. You'll need to use attrib
to change their hidden status before you try to
delete them...

attrib <foldername> -r -s -h

That command will turn off the readonly, system and
hidden attributes on the folder. ALSO, be careful
using the DEL on a folder. It deletes ALL the files in
the folder. You don't want to accidently delete the
wrong folder. Just pay attention to which folder you
are going to delete (and it doesn't delete the folder,
it deletes all the unhidden, unsystem, unreadonly files
in the folder). To delete the actual folder, you will
need to delete the hidden files inside that folder as
well, and the only hidden files should be index.dat
and maybe a desktop.ini file. It might be impossible
to delete those files if Internet Explorer is open so
you might have to shut down you browser, Windows
Media Player, and perhaps other software. That's
up to you to choose though, as the only goal is to
delete the big file (if there is a big file). There could be
a disk problem/fat/ntfs problem.

 

[Dave Smith]

What about letting ScanDisk run on it?

I was trying to avoid this next technique... it is again
DOS, there is a switch /s for the dir command that
will tell it to parse every subdirectory (or folder as
most people call them), the only problem is that IF
there are a lot of files on the system, it could be a
very long list of files to stare through... I would not
be able to pull this off on my system... Type the
following:

1) This will go through every unhidden file on the C:
drive (I assume the C: drive):

CD \
dir *.* /s /p

The /s switch means all subfolders, the *.* means all
files, the /p switch means view one page at a time.

You could set the properties for the DOS prompt
up to display 100000 lines if needed and avoid using
the /p switch, as the /p switch makes things very long
and tedious to go through using your eyes and patience.

2) The following will display all hidden files:
CD \
dir /s /ah

That should be pretty easy to work and view and you
might not need the /p switch there, so I left it out.
Again you can set the properties for the DOS window
to display 100000 lines if you so desire. I usually have
my DOS prompt set to display 5000 lines.

If you know where your Temporary Internet Files are
stored you can navigate to that folder using DOS. Or
you can type in the following:

CD "%UserProfile%\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files"
dir/ah

You will see four funky named folders, and you can try the
following:

DEL <foldername>

where <foldername> is the name of the folder as displayed
in the list. Do that for each folder. Who knows? Maybe it's
another "feature" that deleting Internet Files in the MS
approved manner...

That'll give you something to do. I'll suggest messing
with the dir command and the /p /s switches. They're
pretty intuitive. You can use CTRL+C on the keyboard
to break out of a dir listing at any time.

Thanks again Jim. I will try these suggestions. I did go out and get
that DVD-R drive (Plex712 at Best Buy for $127) and I'm going to
backup and delete a bunch of files. Should make it easier. I'll post
back on my results.

 

[Dave Smith]

Oh, I left out a couple things:

The Temporary Internet Files are almost always
tagged as hidden files. You'll need to use attrib
to change their hidden status before you try to
delete them...

attrib <foldername> -r -s -h

That command will turn off the readonly, system and
hidden attributes on the folder. ALSO, be careful
using the DEL on a folder. It deletes ALL the files in
the folder. You don't want to accidently delete the
wrong folder. Just pay attention to which folder you
are going to delete (and it doesn't delete the folder,
it deletes all the unhidden, unsystem, unreadonly files
in the folder). To delete the actual folder, you will
need to delete the hidden files inside that folder as
well, and the only hidden files should be index.dat
and maybe a desktop.ini file. It might be impossible
to delete those files if Internet Explorer is open so
you might have to shut down you browser, Windows
Media Player, and perhaps other software. That's
up to you to choose though, as the only goal is to
delete the big file (if there is a big file). There could be
a disk problem/fat/ntfs problem.

Well, I can't explain it, but the problem seems to have solved itself.
I got the DVD writer and installed it, backed up about three GB of
image and music files and shift+deleted them and when I checked My
Computer to see how much space I'd saved, ALL my HDD space was back.
The files were deleted from directories entirely separate from the
desktop, from which the big file had been deleted. I have no idea how
or why this happened. If you do I'd love to hear it.

I'll post back to the group under a new header as quite a few folks
offered help. Thanks very much for your help. I learned a bit about
DOS from you if nothing else and I appreciate it.

 

[Jim Carlock]

Well, that's pretty good to hear. I'll have to remember that.

It's making me wonder if just using the DOS Move
command would have solved the problem. Basically it
really doesn't move the files if the move is occuring on
the same drive, it would just rename an entry in the File
Tables and possibly update some other information in
the File Tables.

You can test it out if you want:

1) Open a DOS prompt
2) cd \ # this changes to the root folder (directory)
3) md TEMP # this creates a folder called TEMP
4) cd TEMP # this changes to the folder called TEMP
5) Copy ..\*.* . /v # this puts some files into the folder

The .. is a symbol DOS (and Windows) uses to designate
folder one folder above your current folder.
The . designates the current folder, so the COPY command
works like this COPY <sourcefiles> <destinationfiles> /[switches]

You can type HELP COPY to get information about the
COPY command at the DOS prompt.

6) cd \
7) Move TEMP TMP

\ is the symbol to designate the root folder (directory).

Have fun!

--
Jim Carlock
http://www.microcosmotalk.com/
Post replies to the newsgroup.

Oh, I left out a couple things:

The Temporary Internet Files are almost always
tagged as hidden files. You'll need to use attrib
to change their hidden status before you try to
delete them...

attrib <foldername> -r -s -h

That command will turn off the readonly, system and
hidden attributes on the folder. ALSO, be careful
using the DEL on a folder. It deletes ALL the files in
the folder. You don't want to accidently delete the
wrong folder. Just pay attention to which folder you
are going to delete (and it doesn't delete the folder,
it deletes all the unhidden, unsystem, unreadonly files
in the folder). To delete the actual folder, you will
need to delete the hidden files inside that folder as
well, and the only hidden files should be index.dat
and maybe a desktop.ini file. It might be impossible
to delete those files if Internet Explorer is open so
you might have to shut down you browser, Windows
Media Player, and perhaps other software. That's
up to you to choose though, as the only goal is to
delete the big file (if there is a big file). There could be
a disk problem/fat/ntfs problem.

Well, I can't explain it, but the problem seems to have solved itself.
I got the DVD writer and installed it, backed up about three GB of
image and music files and shift+deleted them and when I checked My
Computer to see how much space I'd saved, ALL my HDD space was back.
The files were deleted from directories entirely separate from the
desktop, from which the big file had been deleted. I have no idea how
or why this happened. If you do I'd love to hear it.

I'll post back to the group under a new header as quite a few folks
offered help. Thanks very much for your help. I learned a bit about
DOS from you if nothing else and I appreciate it.