Almost half of disk space unaccounted for on Windows 7 computer

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2

I'm trying to determine what's eating almost half of disk on my Windows 7 Lenovo laptop but haven't been able to determine what. I read some of the answers on this site but none of the causes seems to be the cause of my problem.

What I've done so far:

  • Checked Windows' System Restore points but only minimum use, either way I deleted around 2GB if usage from there
  • Used WinDirStat and it came back with a total of 71.3GB usage at the root level
  • C Drives properties says 135GB being used out of 138 GB total, ie, 135 GB - 71.3GB = 63.7GB missing somewhere
  • No "Unknown" files reported by WinDirStat
  • Windows Disk Management utility doesn't report any unused partitions or unclaimed space
  • chkdsk comes out clean
  • Windows disk cleanup tool doesn't report anything big, just small stuff in the lower MB range
  • Lenovo backup tool hasn't been used nor there is a folder for the backup images

Any idea on what to look at and/or do?

EDIT: some additional info...

WinDirStat

Disk Properties

Windows Disk Management

Tavo3

Posted 2011-04-21T23:33:46.447

Reputation: 609

1

If you don't mind losing your restore points, disable system restore, then re-check disk space, also Try this program, be sure to run it as Administrator....http://www.uderzo.it/main_products/space_sniffer/

– Moab – 2011-04-21T23:41:23.017

how big is the hard drive? also, how recent/old a model? – Journeyman Geek – 2011-04-21T23:42:57.593

1

Is this the problem? It's somebody else with a Lenovo laptop... apparently the Lenovo backup runs automatically even if you don't tell it to. If that was the problem, let us know and we can close this as a duplicate.

– nhinkle – 2011-04-21T23:46:35.350

Hmm, perhaps you can also try some alternative to the great little tool WinDirStat? Another approach would be to e.g. use UnxUtil's or GnuWin's du port.

– mousio – 2011-04-21T23:59:29.930

@ Moab: I disabled systems restores so Windows it's not going to do them. But as I mentioned on my original post, that isn't the problem. – Tavo3 – 2011-04-22T00:34:46.763

@Journeyman: It's a T400 with an 150GB drive. It has three partitions, C with 138GB, SYSTEM_DRV with 1.17GB and Lenovo Recovery with 9.77GB. The Lenovo is a T400 late 2009 model – Tavo3 – 2011-04-22T00:38:15.263

@nhinkle: I checked that problem and some other related to Lenovo backups before I posted, and no, there is not Lenovo directory for backups created, not even a hidden one so that's not the problem. – Tavo3 – 2011-04-22T00:40:30.333

@mousio: I've used "du" before on many Unix's flavors including Linux but I don't think a disk usage reporting tool is the problem, the problem is I can't find what is taking that space. – Tavo3 – 2011-04-22T00:43:55.167

1

I used to use a program called Space Monger to check disk usage, but I'm not sure there's any reason it would work if WinDirStat doesn't. Might be worth a try though: http://www.sixty-five.cc/sm/v1x.php (there's a newer version, but you have to pay for it)

– user55325 – 2011-04-22T01:32:59.113

Answers

21

Well, I found what the problem was....

I installed SpaceSniffer and initially it gave me the same numbers as WinDirStat, but it also gave me some warnings about some directories it could not read, and among one of them was the Lenovo RRbackups backup directory that I thought it was not there since neither Windows Explorer nor WinDirStat showed.

So I ran the tool again but with Administrator privileges and voila, it found the big a... GB file inside the RRbackups directory that the Lenovo utility creates and that I couldn't see before. It turns out somebody ran the backup tool without me knowing.

I should have suspected that it was a permissions issue even though I was logged in with an account that is a member of the administrators group. Way to go Microsoft with Windows 7, an administrators group that doesn't have administrators privileges.... go figure...

Thanks all for the tips...

Tavo3

Posted 2011-04-21T23:33:46.447

Reputation: 609

4

Welcome to 2006 when Microsoft released a security feature called UAC in Windows Vista (and every Microsoft OS since). It's a good thing. Educate yourself.

– Ryan Bolger – 2011-04-22T21:17:42.187

Exactly, Linux has been using a similar (although better implemented) feature for much longer. – MaQleod – 2011-04-23T17:18:32.960

10

Run WinDirStat in administrator mode (it's a right click option). Some files can't be seen without this.

My culprit was MSSQL log files. One of them was 170GB.

jnnnnn

Posted 2011-04-21T23:33:46.447

Reputation: 213

1

I had a similar situation on a Windows 7 laptop where nearly 500 GB was "missing" on my system partition. The partition was full, but Windows Explorer was unable to detect the missing space, and the "windirstat" program simply showed a 500 GB "unknown" entry.

However, the TreeSize Free (Administrator) program (https://www.jam-software.com/treesize_free/) was able to show what the problem was, namely that someone had misconfigured the Cobian Backup program such that the source and destination directories were the same. As a consequence, it recursed until the partition filled up AND made nearly infinitely long directory paths that neither Windows Explorer nor windirstat were able to handle.

Perhaps needless to say, none of the Windows directory removal tools, including cmd rmdir, would work to remove this mess and it was with great difficulty that I finally managed to clean it up.

Joe Smith

Posted 2011-04-21T23:33:46.447

Reputation: 11

Handy to know, and you're probably sharing out of genuine helpfulness; but posting two identical answers (1) (2) might be mistaken for stealth promotion.

– bertieb – 2017-02-27T19:48:42.433

1

What works for me was lowering space for Previous versions of files (http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/previous-versions-files-faq#1TC=windows-7).

  1. Click Start Icon
  2. Left Click on "Computer" and click on Properties
  3. Click on "System Protection" on left side
  4. Click on Disk and "Configure"
  5. Lower your quota

Aendil

Posted 2011-04-21T23:33:46.447

Reputation: 11

0

We had a similar issue where a user's machine had somehow turned on 'offline files' and so in the C:\Windows\CSC\v2.0.6\namesapace[file server]\ directory there were 164GB of space. Running WDS as admin couldn't find it but after reading dozens of boards and seeing frequent votes for TreeSize, I gave it a shot. This allowed me to identify where the space was being consumed, but in order to get rid of it I needed to go to the CSC directory and take ownership of it. This took a little while but worked. Other suggestions that i tried prior to taking ownership include using the GUI to disable 'offline files' and create an entry in the registry to format the offline files database. Neither of those two items worked.

Michael

Posted 2011-04-21T23:33:46.447

Reputation: 11

0

Assuming that there's files hidden away from the system, it probably should show up in rootkitrevealer - while it won't tell you filesizes, this should get you started on working out where the rest of the space went.

Alternately, i'd suggest running a windirstat equivilent off a linux live cd of some sort to bypass any OS level hiding of free space, and have similar graphical tools.

Journeyman Geek

Posted 2011-04-21T23:33:46.447

Reputation: 119 122

-5

If Windows reports 135 GBs free out of 136 GBs, then trust it -- it's right. You can easily confirm this with the following DOS command:

  • dir C:\

At the end of the list of files, you will see an indication of how much disk space is free.

Randolf Richardson

Posted 2011-04-21T23:33:46.447

Reputation: 14 002

The op's problem is that he has 135GB used of 138 GB, but the files he finds only sum to 71GB – RJFalconer – 2011-04-22T00:33:15.780

Not sure what's your point. I know Windows is telling the truth, my problem is I have 63GB missing somewhere. – Tavo3 – 2011-04-22T00:44:43.280

@Tavo3: I think I know what's going on -- you have sparse files on your system, which WinDirStat is counting the "registered sizes" of, but Windows' built-in statistics report isn't counting this. A sparse file is one that has a big empty space in between and can be created by a program that creates a file (which always starts as 0 bytes), then writes a little bit of data at some point later in the file (e.g., if at the 1 GB marker, then the registered size will be 1 GB even though it doesn't actually use 1 whole GB). – Randolf Richardson – 2011-04-22T03:24:24.267

I have no idea why my response got -2 points. – Randolf Richardson – 2011-04-22T03:24:53.800

Because @Tavo3 wanted to know where the diskspace had gone and your answer doesn't indicate that. – Sathyajith Bhat – 2011-04-23T03:38:19.710

Asked: 2011-04-21T23:33:46.447

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Active: 2017-10-25T14:02:00.107