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Freespace errors

Started by RamboBones Apr 24, 2004 at 12:13 AM 7 replies 450+ views

Original Post

Apr 24, 2004 at 12:13 AM

Okay, something very weird is happening with one of my drives. When I right click on the drive and hit properties it says I am using 4.55 gb of my 4.87 gb drive, with 329 mb of free space. However if I select all files and directories in the root of the drive and hit properties it shows the total size to be 3.72 gb. I am just totally stumped by this, how can I have nearly a gig of free space, that windows reports as being used. I''ve checked the drive for errors and found none, I''ve ensured the recycle bin is empty. Yet still I''m at a loss. I''d reformat the drive but do not have room on my other partitions to temporarily store the data. Does anybody have any ideas as to what could be causing this and how to fix it?

psamty10

Apr 24, 2004 at 12:20 AM

Tools-->Folders Options-->View-->Show hidden files and folders

Should uncover the mystery for you

RamboBones

Apr 24, 2004 at 12:38 AM

I have the folder options set to show all files.

So no, it doesn't solve the mystery.

[edited by - RamboBones on April 24, 2004 1:39:20 AM]

joanusdmentia

Apr 24, 2004 at 1:02 AM

What version of windows? XP (and 2000?) hides special system files separately to hidden files. That extra space will probably be in your swap file and system restore points.

Jesper T

Apr 24, 2004 at 1:10 AM

Its the same with the drive I have win2k on, more space is occupied than the combined file sizes

RamboBones

Apr 24, 2004 at 1:14 AM

quote:
Original post by joanusdmentia
What version of windows? XP (and 2000?) hides special system files separately to hidden files. That extra space will probably be in your swap file and system restore points.

My swap file is on a different drive and I have system restore turned off.

TiffanyCat

Apr 24, 2004 at 1:42 AM

The whole is greater that the sum of the parts

joanusdmentia

Apr 24, 2004 at 6:58 PM

Have you tried using Disk Cleanup? System restore might be off but there may be some restore points left behind. Also, do you have hibernation enabled in your power options? WinXP will set aside as much disk space as you have RAM if you do.

Apart from that, idunno. I wouldn''t worry too much about it, if the reported free space for the drive was corrupt scandisk would have fixed it. There will be some system files windows is hiding for your ''benefit''.

RamboBones

Apr 24, 2004 at 8:48 PM

I''ve done diskcleanup to remove all restore points, there weren''t any, and I have hibernation turned off. I can understand windows needing some space to store things on the drive. But nearly a gig! I don''t think so. As soon as I can transfer the data off I''m going to reformat it, hopefully that''ll fix things.

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