Windows tells me my 100gb partition is full

[NeezyDeezy]

My programs are telling me I can't save files because there is no room on the disk...

right-click on C:/ in my computer shows me
this

But right click on all files in C:/ and choosing "properties" shows me
this

I know there are not 100gbs worth of files on the disk unless something is going wrong.

Ideas / Advices?

 

[stevty2889]

Hmm, try running chkdsk, and then a defrag, and see if that helps.

 

[quackerww]

ccleaner

 

[NeezyDeezy]

thanks

hmm, no dice - says not enough room to run a defrag, and that it is not needed because there's no fragmentation

 

[quackerww]

Hmmm, search for files over 1gb.... if all else fails reformat.

 

[NeezyDeezy]

k, it's my boot drive tho, I'd rather not if there's something else to try

 

[ciproxr]

get partition magic and make the partition bigger, even though it could be something else.

 

[Jiggz]

Ran Disk Cleanup first and then clean as much as you can and see if that will free some space to ran a defrag. After defrag and the size is still the same, then ran a hdd utility. You might want to invest in an additional hdd.

 

[NeezyDeezy]

Thanks for the advice. What HDD utility do you recommend.

I have a few HDDs, what made you think I don't?

 

[Lord Evermore]

Investing in a new hard drive doesn't address the fact that he's missing 70GB of data somewhere.

There are freeware tools all over that will let you see what folders contain the most files.

It seems like there's a glitch in the usage readings. When you select all the folders and view properties, Windows reads through the file table to get the data for all the files. When you view the properties for the drive, it doesn't do that so it must be a "cached" sort of record of the used space on the drive. Maybe a bit got flipped somewhere.

chkdsk ought to catch that sort of inconsistency. You may want to run it during the boot process.

If you've got another computer, put the drive in that one and see if the same thing appears.

 

[NeezyDeezy]

Lord Evermore, thank you. Just the type of advice I was looking for. I just ran checkdisk during the boot process and it told me everything was normal. I don't have another computer to try this drive in. Would you recommend I try a freeware tool of the type you mention? If so, which one? Thank-you!

 

[Lord Evermore]

Just go to download.com or snapfiles.com and look at the utilities sections. Of course, most likely what's going to happen is they'll show you exactly where your 30GB's of files are, but give you no indication why another 70GB is showing as used with no reason.

Perhaps one way to fix this would be to copy this drive to a spare one and then boot from that drive to see if the space issue exists. If it doesn't, then just wipe the original drive and copy the data back to it. You might want to verify the total data size that you were seeing by selecting all files, just to make sure nothing major is lost in the transfer; the total will be off by a small amount due to registry changes during the boot and detection of the hard drive. Apps like Ghost and PartitionMagic normally enumerate every file to copy them, rather than making a bit for bit copy of the drive, so they should accuratedly create a file table.

PerfectDisk (and I think DiskKeeper and others) can also defrag a drive even with very little free space, if you have such a need in the future. PerfectDisk has a free trial.

 

[NeezyDeezy]

perfect, thank-you

I'm going to copy the partition to another drive now and see what happens.

 

[Lord Evermore]

Ooh, found this too.

MS KB

 

[PurdueRy]

Make sure to go into folder optiones and select the following:

"show hidden files and folders"

and UNCHECK

"hide protected OS files"

This probably won't come up with all that space but it does make a difference

 

[ROJAS]

Partition Magic is another program that will check your hard drive out as well.

 

[saltedeggman]

time for reformat

 

[Lord Evermore]

I presumed he had the protected files and hidden files options set, since we can see hidden files and folders and protected files and folders in the screenshots.

I suppose there's a SLIM chance there's 70GB of System Restore files, since the user normally does not have permission to view the contents of the System Volume Information folder, so Explorer would not count them (and if any application needs disk space, Windows should delete the files anyway). But the default is 12% of the drive space maximum, so I doubt this.

If nothing else works, then using a real "backup" application would be almost certain to resolve this. Programs like Backup included in Windows, or 3rd party backup apps, copy file by file in XP, and require that you re-install Windows in order to restore the data (after wiping the drive), so there'd be no chance of carrying over any partition/file table nuttiness.

 

[NeezyDeezy]

Based on that windows link you posted, I decided to try a 3rd party defrag prog first. Diskeeper 10 appears to be fixing it. I will post with full results once if finishes.

 

[NeezyDeezy]

Uggg,

THIS

can't be good

It was the system restore files becoming huge... I don't know how this happened I had it set to "off" I thought. Now I can't even open the settings. I guess at this point I really don't have any options but to reformat and reinstall windows. Puke.

 

[Lord Evermore]

Try it within Safe Mode first. And you can actually set the permissions on the System Volume Information folder to allow you to view the files and folders inside it. You have to turn off "Simple File Sharing" to access permissions.

You could also look up the registry settings that control system restore, and manually disable it, then reboot.

Also, don't forget that you do not have to reformat to do a good clean install of Windows. Use the Repair type of installation (but not the recovery console; search AT and other sites on how).

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

I think this program might help you out tremendously.

 

[Old Hippie]

I don't know how this happened I had it set to "off" I thought.

Senior Member has a Senior Moment? I get 'um all the time myself!

 

[NeezyDeezy]

Okay, the problem has finally been totally fixed. I reinstalled system restore using the SP2 disk. I have no idea how that could have happened in the first place though.

Thanks everybody, especially Lord Evermore.