Deleted backup file still eating 5 gig memory

[Guest]

Just updated my new hard drive with the back up file from the old one.
Backup went fine but when I deleted it, the 5 gig it occupied did not get
freed up on the hard drive. Did I need to do something else besides delete
it? Is it potentially lurking in another file? Help is much appreciated.

 

[Chelsea]

Are you sure you have actually deleted it? 5GB files are too large for the
recycle bin and you would have got a dialogue box asking for delete
confirmation. If you just hit that dialogue without reading it, you may not
have deleted the large file. Sorry if that sounds patronising. The other
thing is optimise your hard disk with a good quality defragmenter. Do both
online and boot-time defragmentation.

Chelsea

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the quick reply. Don't worry about patronising, I'm grateful for
any help. When deleting, a prompt appeared saying the file was too large to
fit in the recycle bin and did I want to delete it anyway. I clicked delete
and the file disappeared from the folder, as did the size of the folder, but
the memory usage is still showing against the c drive.

If you have a trusted site you can recommend for the defragmentation, I'll
certainly try that, but based on the results from using the computer
defragmenter, I'm not confident this will solve the problem.

 

[Chelsea]

Hi Eric,
I was really trying to cover the basics with my earlier post. Lets see what
defragmentation does. The most popular commercial program is Diskeeper from
Executive software-if you have used Windows XP's defragger you have used a
cut down version of Diskeeper. Personally I prefer Raxco Perfect Disk which
has all the same features as Diskeeper, but at least to me seems faster. You
can get a fully functionally trial at
http://www.raxco.com/products/downloadit/perfectdisk2000_download.cfm
Defragmentation should cause the Master File Table -MFT -which is a list of
all the files on your system -to be updated . It is just possible that the
MFT wasn't updated when you deleted the 5GB file. Also perhaps even before
defragmenting on the Start Menu go to Run, in the dialogue box type cmd. Now
in the console that appears type chkdsk c: /f . It will inform you that the
drive cannot be accessed and would you like the operation carried out when
the machine next reboots. Select Y . Do the same thing on your other logical
partitions so type chkdsk d: /f , type chkdsk e: /f etc for all your
drives. CheckDisk (chkdsk) will be able to run from within Windows if the
other logical partitions don't have system files or page files. Now reboot
and let the program run.

Chelsea

 

[Guest]

Hi Chelsea,

I've tried everything you suggested and I'm still missing the memory. When
I tally up the file usage of all the visible and hidden files, I should have
over 20 gig remaining and I can only see 15. Any other suggestions?

Thanks for your help so far.

Eric

 

[Chelsea]

Hi Eric,
Life is never easy is it. What program did you use to restore the image to
your hard drive-I assume it was an image? Try searching your whole system
using *.suffix (where suffix is the file extension your backup program
uses). You do this by going to Search on the Start Menu-choose "Files and
Folders", Click on "More Advanced Options" and check the boxes besides
"Search System Folder", "Search Hidden Files and Folders" and "Search
Subfolders." Lets see if that has any effect! The only other possibility I
can think of is that theirs a hidden partition, but lets see what the search
throws up first.

Chelsea