Wierd Free Space Issue - Windows Explorer 1

[russellhancock]

Hi,

yesterday one of my webservers, a dell PE1650 running windows 2000 server, crashed. After reboot we descovered that the problem was due to the computer running out of virtual memory.

We have since moved the bulk of the page files to the d:, and decided to find out where the space had gone (the server had used 800MB in 2 weeks, where in normally only uses 40MB in 2 weeks).

Once in Windows Explorer the drive says that there is 800MB free, but if i do a "Select All" on the root of the c: it says that there should be 1.6GB free!!

i have checked the sizes of the folders (right click -> properties) and added this up, it agress (more or less) with the "Select All" value.

Where could this extra space be hiding? has any one else had any similar problems? i am really stuck on this one.

Thanks for any help

Russell

 

[rzs0502]

What is the size of your C Drive?
Are you using file and folder compression??

 

[russellhancock]

The c: is 3.99GB, we are not using folder compression.

 

[rzs0502]

Under Tools -> Folder Options on Explorer there is an option to Hide Protectes System Files on the View tab.

Toggling this gives very different results.
The Drive free space would normally calculate with these files but the Select All would not take them into account

 

[russellhancock]

Hi,

Thanks for that tip, the extra space is being used by pagefile.sys and recycler.

This has given a new question, recycling bin is empty, but it still has 343MB in size? i have checked my other servers / workstations and none have the same problem. I have also done disk cleanup and it says that the recycle bin is 0MB as well.

Any ideas why this could be?

Thanks

Russell

 

[rzs0502]

If you Right Click on the Recycle Bin, you can configure the maximum percentage of disk space to allocate for Deleted Items. You can set this globally or a different value for each disk.
If you have the default value of 10%, the Recycle Bin will be allocated 400GB of your 4GB disk...

Thanks...

 

[rzs0502]

That should be 400MB and not GB

 

[russellhancock]

Hi,

Thanks for the prompt reply.

I have tried changing the settings for the recyle bin, but it does not effect the actual size it is holding, even setting it to 0%. I have also checked on an identical server, and this has the same settings, but reports only 10Mb in space for recycler...

At least now i can tell my boss where it is hidding, and have a better idea where to look in future.

Thanks for the help and if you have any more ideas....

Russell

 

[rzs0502]

An empty recycle bin should only take up 8 bytes of disk space.
If your Desktop Recycle Bin is empty and your Recycle folders on your C Drive is more that 8 bytes, then it could mean that some files have not been properly removed.
Are there any files in C:\RECYCLER\S-1-XXXXXXXXXXXXXX ?