[jeffmontreal]

Hi and thanks in advance for any help
I am getting a message that my hard drive is full, when i click on properties for the C drive it confirms that i am using 29.5 GB of my 30 GB hard drive. BUT when i add up the sizes of all the files on the C drive (including hidden files), it only comes to 25 GB.
Any ideas on why I can't find that missing 5 GB?

Thanks.

 

[valis]

try this:

Please download ATF Cleaner by Atribune.
This program is for XP and Windows 2000 only

• 
  Double-click ATF-Cleaner.exe to run the program.
  Under Main choose: Select All
  Click the Empty Selected button.

If you use Firefox browser

• Click Firefox at the top and choose: Select All
  Click the Empty Selected button.
  NOTE: If you would like to keep your saved passwords, please click No at the prompt.

If you use Opera browser

• Click Opera at the top and choose: Select All
  Click the Empty Selected button.
  NOTE: If you would like to keep your saved passwords, please click No at the prompt.

Click Exit on the Main menu to close the program.
For Technical Support, double-click the e-mail address located at the bottom of each menu.

be sure to note how much it frees up, and post that back here if you could.

 

[schusterjo]

A lot you do not see such as virtual memory ext.. This is an area on the hard drive the OS will reserve to run its processes.

 

[cwwozniak]

when i add up the sizes of all the files on the C drive (including hidden files), it only comes to 25 GB. Any ideas on why I can't find that missing 5 GB?

You also need to look at how much space each file uses on the hard disk, not just the size of the file itself. Assuming you are using an NTFS file system, I believe your 29.5 GB drive uses 32 Kilobyte cluster sizes. Storage space for a given file is allocated in 32 KB increments. That means that a 2 KB file and a 20 KB file would each use up a 32 KB block of drive space. A 33 KB file would use up 64 KB.

EDIT: BTW, Welcome to TSG.

CORRECTION: In looking over an NTFS file cluster chart, I overlooked a note that the chart was for two different versions of NTFS. I was quoting numbers for the version in Windows NT 3.5 and Earlier instead of the version in Windows NT 3.51 and Later (Including Windows 2000). The later version has cluster size of 4 KB for any drive over 2 GB.

 

[jackdw]

You also need to look at how much space each file uses on the hard disk, not just the size of the file itself. Assuming you are using an NTFS file system, I believe your 29.5 GB drive uses 32 Kilobyte cluster sizes. Storage space for a given file is allocated in 32 KB increments. That means that a 2 KB file and a 20 KB file would each use up a 32 KB block of drive space. A 33 KB file would use up 64 KB.

EDIT: BTW, Welcome to TSG.

So thats why properties of files and folders have size and size on disk?

 

[valis]

So thats why properties of files and folders have size and size on disk?

yup.

 

[jeffmontreal]

Hi everyone, thanks for the info; I will try the atf program as well, and post any results. guess i will have to get rid of some stuff on the drive.

Jeff

 

[jeffmontreal]

hi again - atf tells me it has freed up 2 million bytes or so..i had run the windows disk cleanup thing a ma bob recently, so maybe there wasn't much left to clean up...thanks again

jeff

 

[angelmat]

Thanks .... it freed 933.367 Mb for me .... I was looking at 19.07 total available of a physical 20GB drive, of which select all files > properties showed 14.6GB in use (actual), but explorer showed 16.8GB in use ... I'd already purged all the caches, cookies, and temp internet files I could find for both IE and Firefox, so who knows what it found. Glad I looked here, though, that extra gig free is enough to finally defrag.

 

[Nastrodamus]

If you have Win XP, check and make sure your system restore points are not holding all of that space.

 

[Elvandil]

It's just plain time to get a bigger drive, or add another one.