What is using my disk space?

[Richard Jonas]

Hi,

I have a Windows 2000 Server system with 2 partitions. In one of them,
I have about 8GB of files. The partition is 36GB in size. However, the
properties for the partition say that there is no free space.

I have tried showing all the hidden files and folders, and I can't
find more than about 8GB worth of files.

Does anyone have any suggestions for things I should look for, or can
you recommend any tools that would show me what is using all the disk
space?

Thanks,

Richard Jonas

 

[Chris W]

I have a Windows 2000 Server system with 2 partitions. In one of them,
I have about 8GB of files. The partition is 36GB in size. However, the
properties for the partition say that there is no free space.

I have tried showing all the hidden files and folders, and I can't
find more than about 8GB worth of files.

Does anyone have any suggestions for things I should look for, or can
you recommend any tools that would show me what is using all the disk
space?

if all or a lot of your files are very small that can be the cause. The
space a file takes up on your hard disk is a multiple of the allocation
unit size. So in an extreme case of a million 1 byte files saved on a
partition with 4096 bytes per allocation unit you will be wasting 4095
bytes of disk space. Unless you have lots of files that are that small
the "wasted" space averages to be 1/2 the size of your allocation units
times the number of files.

For example on my C drive where there are 12,907 files and the
allocation unit size is 4096 bytes.

12,907 * 2048 = 26,433,536 bytes of "wasted" space.

Now this is of course an estimate. I get the information from the
chkdsk command. You can check this on a folder by folder basis by right
clicking on all the folders in the root directory of you partition and
click on properties. So for instants, my Program Files folder says
there are 674,777,269 bytes stored in that folder and it also says that
the size on disk is 683,302,912 bytes and there are 4,091 files

683,302,912 - 674,777,269 = 8,525,643 bytes of "wasted" space.

the estimate gives this

4091 * 2048 = 8,378,368 bytes of "wasted" space

In this case the estimate is pretty close. Of course that doesn't take
into account the 299 sub folders in Program Files, which also take up
space on the disks.

Chris W

 

[Evi]

There is a nice piece of free software called Treesize which may be able to
pinpoint where the space hogs are.
http://www.jam-software.com/freeware/index.shtml

I did have a great big amount of stuff in a spare recycle bin from a version
of windows that had been installed and deleted or something.

BTW do you have any errors on the drive?
Evi

 

[Richard Jonas]

Thanks Evi,

I'll try out the Treesize software later today, and post if this finds
anything.

Thanks for your suggestion about the recycle bin. I've recently
emptied this and there don't seem to be any errors on the drive.

Regards,

Richard

 

[Richard Jonas]

if all or a lot of your files are very small that can be the cause. The
space a file takes up on your hard disk is a multiple of the allocation
unit size. So in an extreme case of a million 1 byte files saved on a
partition with 4096 bytes per allocation unit you will be wasting 4095
bytes of disk space. Unless you have lots of files that are that small
the "wasted" space averages to be 1/2 the size of your allocation units
times the number of files.

For example on my C drive where there are 12,907 files and the
allocation unit size is 4096 bytes.

12,907 * 2048 = 26,433,536 bytes of "wasted" space.

Now this is of course an estimate. I get the information from the
chkdsk command. You can check this on a folder by folder basis by right
clicking on all the folders in the root directory of you partition and
click on properties. So for instants, my Program Files folder says
there are 674,777,269 bytes stored in that folder and it also says that
the size on disk is 683,302,912 bytes and there are 4,091 files

683,302,912 - 674,777,269 = 8,525,643 bytes of "wasted" space.

the estimate gives this

4091 * 2048 = 8,378,368 bytes of "wasted" space

In this case the estimate is pretty close. Of course that doesn't take
into account the 299 sub folders in Program Files, which also take up
space on the disks.

Chris W

Thanks Chris,

I've tried this and it appears as if there is a small increase in the
space on disk figure compared with the file sizes. However, this does
not appear to account for all of the used space.

The figures I got were 8,329,046,968 bytes are used on disk in all the
files, compared with 8,288,223,693 of data in the files. Used space
on the disk is 32,892,121,088 bytes.

Richard

 

[Richard Jonas]

The Treesize software only showed about 8GB files. However, I think
I've made some progress into finding the cause of the problem.

I tried defragmenting the disk, and it gave some large files that it
could not defragment. These were in the \RECYCLER\03561698426\
directory.

However, I can't see this directory to remove these files (I can see
RECYCLER, but not this subdirectory). I can't see anything listed in
the recycle bin either.

Does anyone have any thoughts on how to remove these files?

Thanks,

Richard.

 

[Gary Smith]

The Treesize software only showed about 8GB files. However, I think
I've made some progress into finding the cause of the problem.

I tried defragmenting the disk, and it gave some large files that it
could not defragment. These were in the \RECYCLER\03561698426\
directory.

However, I can't see this directory to remove these files (I can see
RECYCLER, but not this subdirectory). I can't see anything listed in
the recycle bin either.

The folder is probably hidden. You may be able to see it if you set your
folder options to display hidden files and folders and not to hide
anything (the preferred option, in my opinion). Either way, you can try
deleting the RECYCLER folder itself. Windows will recreate it the
next time something is deleted to the Recycle Bin.

 

[Richard Jonas]

The folder is probably hidden. You may be able to see it if you set your
folder options to display hidden files and folders and not to hide
anything (the preferred option, in my opinion). Either way, you can try
deleting the RECYCLER folder itself. Windows will recreate it the
next time something is deleted to the Recycle Bin.

Hi Gary,

Thank you for your reply. I've tried absolutely everything I can think
of to unhide the folder and folders that inherit from it, and I can't
see anything in the RECYCLER folder (but I can see other hidden
folders elsewhere in the system). I've also tried deleting the
RECYCLER folder, but it says "The folder is not empty", even though
there is nothing that I can see in it.

Is there any way to forcibly remove a directory (when I'm logged on as
an administrator), ignoring the fact it isn't empty?

I've scheduled CHKDSK to run next time the server is rebooted, in case
the file system has become corrupted (and made sure that my regular
backups are working).

Richard

 

[Evi]

This is exactly the same problem which I had, Richard, a spare, oversized
recycle bin.

Here is one article from the Knowledge base

Big invisible files in Recycler folders

Files Are Not Deleted From Recycler Folder kb 229041

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0

Microsoft Windows NT Server, Enterprise Edition 4.0

Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 4.0

This article was previously published under Q229041

SYMPTOMS

When you empty the Recycle Bin in Windows, the files may not be deleted from
your hard disk.

NOTE: You cannot view these files using Windows Explorer, My Computer, or
the Recycle Bin.

CAUSE

This issue can occur if a third-party filter driver is using the files you
try to delete.

RESOLUTION

To resolve this issue, delete the files from an MS-DOS prompt. To do this,
follow these steps:

Click Start, click Run, type cmd.exe in the Open box, and then click OK.

Change to the drive and folder where you deleted the files. For example if
you deleted a file from the C:\Windows folder, type cd\windows at the C:
prompt, and then press ENTER.

From that folder type cd recycler, and then press ENTER.

From the Recycler folder type dir, and then press ENTER. You may see some
UserSID folders where SID is the security ID for each user who deleted files
in that folder.

Type cd userSID, and then press ENTER.

Type del *.*, and then press ENTER. If you receive an error message that
indicates some files are open, quit all the programs running on your
computer.

Type cd.., press ENTER, and then repeat steps 5-7 for each folder in the
Recycler folder.

Type exit, and then press ENTER.



Tell us if this helps.

Evi

 

[Evi]

PS the thread I used was entitled
My Security ID and Emptying Recycler. You could have a look for it in Google
Groups

 

[Greg]

I like SequoiaView for that, free at http://www.win.tue.nl/sequoiaview/

I have had the same problem, used SDelete from www.sysinternals.com. Make
sure you don't have ANY undelete (Norton, FunDelete, etc.) running in the
background.

BTW, Windows seems to have a "feature" where other user's trash is hidden
even from the admin, making it very hard to wipe. Does that sound like your
scenario?

Greg

 

[Gary Smith]

Thank you for your reply. I've tried absolutely everything I can think
of to unhide the folder and folders that inherit from it, and I can't
see anything in the RECYCLER folder (but I can see other hidden
folders elsewhere in the system). I've also tried deleting the
RECYCLER folder, but it says "The folder is not empty", even though
there is nothing that I can see in it.

Is there any way to forcibly remove a directory (when I'm logged on as
an administrator), ignoring the fact it isn't empty?

I was able to delete my RECYCLER folder from Windows Explorer just by
selecting it and hitting the Delete key, but mine wasn't giving me any
problems. For a brute-force method, try this: Open a command prompt and
type "RD /s \RECYCLER". You'll get a message to confirm. Type "Y".
(Don't type the quotes.) That should delete the folder and all of its
contents.

 

[D. Small Gilligan]

That was going to be my question, but I have the second part. Is it true? or
false? that if you delete the recycle bin, your system will give you a clean
one? I have 3 files and 1 folder stuck (but cannot see anything) after I must
have crammed too much stuff in it.
dargill

 

[Gary Smith]

That was going to be my question, but I have the second part. Is it true? or
false? that if you delete the recycle bin, your system will give you a clean
one? I have 3 files and 1 folder stuck (but cannot see anything) after I must
have crammed too much stuff in it.

True. Delete the folder and the system will create a new one when it's
needed. As I type this, there's no RECYCLED folder on my D drive, where
Win2K lives. Now I double-click on the Recycle Bin icon on the desktop,
and presto! it appears. Empty, of course, except for an empty subfolder
named with my SID.