Disk space indicator is WRONG!!!

TimTim Southwest PA Icrontian
edited December 2003 in Hardware
As my E: drive, I have an 80 GB Seagate Barracuda that I installed about a month ago. It works fine. But today I encountered a problem.

I had rented the DVD for the film "American Movie", and was going to save it to the E: drive. Well, after saving it, I had a bunch of files. But they would not play even when using the Cyberlink PowerDVD player. So I figured it must be encrypted or something. So I deleted the DVD files.

BUT -- When I click on E: drive << Properties, the disk space taken up by the DVD shows that it still is almost all being used! I'd gone from 12.7 GB used space to 20.9 or thereabouts, but after deleting the files, it still insists I'm using 19.7 GB of disk space.

What is this, and how can I get it to be right again? It should be about 12.7 GB used space again.

About 3 months ago, files quit appearing in my Recycle bin after I deleted them. I don't know what that's about either.

Comments

  • BlackHawkBlackHawk Bible music connoisseur There's no place like 127.0.0.1 Icrontian
    edited November 2003
    You can try this (attachment). It visually displays files and how much space it uses so you know what exactly is using up the space.

    BTW, YGPM ;)
  • CreepCreep Hell Icrontian
    edited November 2003
    Did you empty the trash can?
  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian
    edited November 2003
    Go to a command prompt and type

    chkdsk d: /f

    perhaps you have a bad block in your recycle bin that is preventing you from emptying it or something.
  • CycloniteCyclonite Tampa, Florida Icrontian
    edited November 2003
    Do you have temporary files somewhere that you may have missed? DVD's aren't small. :)
  • mmonninmmonnin Centreville, VA
    edited November 2003
    Unless you empty your recycle bin it will still say the data is on the drive. It will still say 20GB used until its emptied.
  • TimTim Southwest PA Icrontian
    edited November 2003
    Someone else in another topic told me what I needed to know - I had a box that was checked in the Recycle bin that was causing files to be deleted and not held in the Bin.

    The Space Monger thing showed the same amount of disk usage as my computer did. The files are all deleted, but the space is still taken up. WTF is the matter with this damn thing.
  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian
    edited November 2003
    Did you run chkdsk yet?
  • TimTim Southwest PA Icrontian
    edited November 2003
    Where do I go to type in the chkdsk command? I tried restarting and hitting delete until I got the startup screen, but there was no place to type anything in that I saw. Then I started the computer normally and saw no place to do it there either.

    I tried a defrag and it showed the same thing. Space occupied with files that were deleted. The files aren't there but the space is still taken up.

    I've got XP Home.
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited November 2003
    Windows XP will take up a HUGE amount of space on a drive for "Free space reserved for system use". This is normal (I don't like it, either). The space will be given back should you need it for actual storage. I have had 80GB drives with up to 20% of their space falling into this category.

    Pre-XP, your best bet is Scandisk - if you're lucky it will find "free space marked as used", correct the problem, then send you on your merry way.
  • EnverexEnverex Worcester, UK Icrontian
    edited November 2003
    Tim: Press the windows key and R at the same time and you will get a box appear.
    Type -
    chkdsk E: /f /x /r

    That should fix the problem if it's anything to do with the filesystem.

    The setting you are probably talking about with the bin is the "Do not send files to the Recycle bin. Remove them immediatley upon deletion".

    NS
  • EnverexEnverex Worcester, UK Icrontian
    edited November 2003
    profdlp had this to say
    Windows XP will take up a HUGE amount of space on a drive for "Free space reserved for system use". This is normal (I don't like it, either). The space will be given back should you need it for actual storage. I have had 80GB drives with up to 20% of their space falling into this category.

    That sounds more like "System Restore" than anything else, as after dissabling it, I don't have any space dissapearing.

    NS
  • TimTim Southwest PA Icrontian
    edited November 2003
    I have now tried the check disk feature and also System Restore. Neither one helped the disk space indicator problem.

    Only good thing was that I was able to use System Restore to go back to my old Kazaa version 2.0.2 . I recently tried 2.5.2 and 2.6, but I didn't like either one. They suck up system resources like crazy. I'll stick with 2.0.2 .
  • Straight_ManStraight_Man Geeky, in my own way Naples, FL Icrontian
    edited November 2003
    Yeah, System Restore, if you do not fully delete files, can also work automatically if there are any issues XP detects and it decides to do a System autorecover from a restore point. At that point, an older journal set cna also be recovered. Turn off System Restore, kill files (delete and empty from wastebasket, and if you have Norton elete its nice Norton Protected Recycle Bin files which are a nice safety catch for a slightly unaware person who deletes the wrong thing too often but means you clean in essence TWO recycle bins now and then unless you want to wait 5 days for them to disappear (mine is set to 2 days)), save a restore point, then reboot and see if files are totally gone. Also disable Roxio GoBack if you run it FIRST thing before you do what is above. Seen 2000 Pro do this also-- delete plus system fault of any ohter kind that XP thinks is major = rollback which can include file deletes vaporizing adn thus files left intact. Worm infection triggers this, System files get eaten, XP and 2000 CAN auto-rollback.

    John.
  • TimTim Southwest PA Icrontian
    edited December 2003
    I fixed it!

    Here's what I did:

    Since there weren't very many files on my E: drive, I transferred the critical stuff to the C: drive and deleted the rest. I have backup copies of that stuff on CDs, so it's no big deal to reload it all.

    Then, I pulled out my Dell-supplied Windows XP recovery / reload disk, opened the CD tray, and shut down the computer.

    I went inside the computer, pulled the IDE cable off the C: drive and hooked it to the E: drive, in effect making the E: drive the C: drive and keeping the real C: drive out of my next idea.

    I turned the computer back on and let the XP disk start loading, knowing that one of the first steps in installing XP is a complete *** hard drive format *** . I let the format run (NTFS file system), and as soon as it hit 100%, I ejected the CD and shut down the computer.

    Then I reconnected the IDE cable as it normally is, and restarted the computer. Once it got running again, all was well. I was down to 67.4 MB on the E: drive.

    Damn, I'm good! :D

    The End.
  • TexTex Dallas/Ft. Worth
    edited December 2003
    Not really since you could of formatted the drive with out all that silly nonsense in two minutes in XP anyway.

    Tex
  • EnverexEnverex Worcester, UK Icrontian
    edited December 2003
    Even better to unpartition it first, repartition it, then format it. But still, deffinately wouldn't called that "fixing" the problem. More like removing the results to remove the problem...

    NS
  • TexTex Dallas/Ft. Worth
    edited December 2003
    so true.
  • TimTim Southwest PA Icrontian
    edited December 2003
    I did originally try formatting the hard drive from the My Computer icon << E: icon in XP. But it wouldn't let me do it. It said there were things being used or something like that.

    But this other way worked.
  • TexTex Dallas/Ft. Worth
    edited December 2003
    And if you did it from disk management which is where all disk formating should happen it would of warned you and then asked if you wanted to force it anyway. One more mouse click and you would of been there champ.

    Tex
  • TimTim Southwest PA Icrontian
    edited December 2003
    If I remember correctly, it didn't give me a choice to force it. I only got a message saying it wouldn't do it, and could only click the "Okay" button.
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