Unaccounted Hard Drive Space

[Adam]

This is a unique problem for me.

Computer:
Dell Precision M60 Laptop
OS:
Windows XP Pro w/ all updates

Problem:
60GB hard drive is showing only 14GB free space. The
problem is that the total of all files installed on the
computer (including all hidden and system folders) is
12.76GB. That leaves approximately 33GB of space that is
currently inaccessible even though the space should be
free. Running Disk Defragmentor showed almost the entire
hard drive to contain fragmented files. Defrag was run
overnight. The first half of the drive now contains
contiguous and unmovable files, but the second half is
still one large block of fragmented files that disk
defragmentor will not touch. Disk cleanup was run as an
alternative, only recovering approximately 22kb from
various temp folders. Chkdsk was run with the /F
option. No bad sectors were found and no files were
recovered. I'm completely at a loss. The computer is
only 3 weeks old and nothing unusual has been installed.
The employee used the Files and Settings Transfer Wizard
to move his profile from the old laptop -- is this
possibly a cause? I do not suspect virus activity or
malicious intrusion. It is behind an ISA firewall and is
running McAfee VirusScan Enterprise 7.1.0.

Any takers? Thanks,
Adam

 

[Guest]

Sorry, I wasn't descriptive enough in my last post. Disk
Management shows one 60GB healthy system drive. It is
all one NTFS partition.

 

[Sharon F]

This is a unique problem for me.

Computer:
Dell Precision M60 Laptop
OS:
Windows XP Pro w/ all updates

Problem:
60GB hard drive is showing only 14GB free space. The
problem is that the total of all files installed on the
computer (including all hidden and system folders) is
12.76GB. That leaves approximately 33GB of space that is
currently inaccessible even though the space should be
free. Running Disk Defragmentor showed almost the entire
hard drive to contain fragmented files. Defrag was run
overnight. The first half of the drive now contains
contiguous and unmovable files, but the second half is
still one large block of fragmented files that disk
defragmentor will not touch. Disk cleanup was run as an
alternative, only recovering approximately 22kb from
various temp folders. Chkdsk was run with the /F
option. No bad sectors were found and no files were
recovered. I'm completely at a loss. The computer is
only 3 weeks old and nothing unusual has been installed.
The employee used the Files and Settings Transfer Wizard
to move his profile from the old laptop -- is this
possibly a cause? I do not suspect virus activity or
malicious intrusion. It is behind an ISA firewall and is
running McAfee VirusScan Enterprise 7.1.0.

Any takers? Thanks,
Adam

If installed, have you checked the contents of the Norton Protected
Bin?

 

[Michael P Gabriel]

This is a unique problem for me.

Computer:
Dell Precision M60 Laptop
OS:
Windows XP Pro w/ all updates

Problem:
60GB hard drive is showing only 14GB free space. The
problem is that the total of all files installed on the
computer (including all hidden and system folders) is
12.76GB. That leaves approximately 33GB of space that is
currently inaccessible even though the space should be
free. Running Disk Defragmentor showed almost the entire
hard drive to contain fragmented files. Defrag was run
overnight. The first half of the drive now contains
contiguous and unmovable files, but the second half is
still one large block of fragmented files that disk
defragmentor will not touch. Disk cleanup was run as an
alternative, only recovering approximately 22kb from
various temp folders. Chkdsk was run with the /F
option. No bad sectors were found and no files were
recovered. I'm completely at a loss. The computer is
only 3 weeks old and nothing unusual has been installed.
The employee used the Files and Settings Transfer Wizard
to move his profile from the old laptop -- is this
possibly a cause? I do not suspect virus activity or
malicious intrusion. It is behind an ISA firewall and is
running McAfee VirusScan Enterprise 7.1.0.

Any takers? Thanks,
Adam>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Sorry I can't be a taker, but I

have a similar problem with a 32G partition, totally blank. Partition
shows 32G, but only 28g available, yet there are no programs on that
partition at all!!!So I reformatted the drive and it all came
back....(until it bounced back and said that it could not finalize the
format because of a Boot Sector Virus Protection problem.) But you
can't because you have data on yours...no? In my case I believe
Partition MAgic goofed it up when I broke up an 80G, brand new drive!
Now I have the task of figuring out where on my Dell 2400 I can diable
the Boot Vrus Protection. There are no options whatsoever in the BIOS.
Well, enough of my problems.

I'll be watching the results from your post. Should be quite
interesting.

 

[Unknown]

You apparently had some logging taking place at one time and never turned off.
This could be boot log or modem logging or similar. The restore function
doesn't use that much memory. I suggest you also search for temp files..