Missing Space

[cbman]

I've run into this on quite a few XP machines and I was wondering if anyone has figured out where the missing space has gone...

This is just one of my drives... its missing ~4GB... another of my Drives is missing ~3 GB... my friend is missing ~5 GB... mine isn't that bad... his is missing on a 20GB SCSI Drive...

Oh and its not some hidden system files as I have also gone and manually added up all the file sizes on the drive including hidden and system files. Thank god alot of the files on this drive are Archives and CD-Images.

[Paddy]

NTFS sets aside 9MB or so when formating, but not 9GB.

[GNEP]

System Restore?

[VJ]

Yep, that would be my guess as well. IIRC it takes up
10% for every logical drive.
Check control panel | system, I think system restore has its
own tab.

Jorg

[cbman]

Its not the system restore... that was the first thing I tried to reclaim the space... here is a jpg of his SCSI drive... and you'll see why its quite alarming.. and again.. I manually added up the size of files and folders making sure to get them all to ensure that I'm not missing anything.

[Tjalfe]

Do you have a norton protected recycle bin messing with you?

[Jon P. Inghram]

It's a Dell!

Seriously though, on my system everything adds up properly. Perhaps it's the NTFS MFT expansion zone, the system reserves it to keep the MFT from getting fragmented, although if the drive runs out of space it'll use it for files as a last resort.

[Gurm]

Ahrm. Are you positive you've got "show hidden and system files" turned on, and that sort of thing?

Also... have you taken swap space into account?

- Gurm

[Gurm]

Also, er... try a different utility? Maybe the one you're using is not 100% accurate.

- Gurm

[cbman]

I also turn off the Norton Protected Recycle Bin as well...

I'll show you a comparison of my drives...

(You'll have to excuse my crappy editing job... I'm not big into working on pictures...LOL... Guess I'm just not L33T)

[cbman]

And yeah... I've checked to make sure everything is being taken into account... and I have used a few other utilities... all report the same thing... notice how the "Stuff" drive doesn't suffer from the problem... and its packed full of stuff as well...

Each Drive Has 4GB set aside for Recycle Bin usage... and The Backup Drive has never had an OS installed on it...

Its a fun puzzle

*Oh and yes the swap space is taken into account... you just can't see it on that list but its on the bottom.

[Jon P. Inghram]

What's the built-in WinXP drive info window say? I added up the size of all folders and files in the root directory and it comes out to the same that XP says is being used.

[cbman]

Here's The Windows Drivespace Report

[cbman]

Here is a pic of my desktop with the Drive Properties Page... and the selection of all files and folders on the drive's properties page... note the difference... what the heck is missing ?

[Admiral]

How big are your Windows and Documents and Settings folders ?