Missing Disk Space

Have you enabled Volume Shadow Copy?

I tend to recommend you use diruse to check where the disk space is - I've only seen one bizarre instance where it didn't work.  There are other graphical apps that can perform similarly, however, most of these are unable to include space that the user running the program doesn't have access to.  Diruse can include that space.

Download from:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=955D7F2F-73D9-4018-9DD7-42DA210E62EE&displaylang=en

You could have some file system corruption going on. A chkdsk D: /f would be in order and require reboot.  I would do that first to make sure the file system is clean. Then use either Diruse as leew mentioned or I like TreeSize. There is a free version to try at:
http://www.jam-software.com/freeware/index.shtml

to see where space is being consumed.

Hi Folks,

Using diruse I got the following

C:\Program Files\Support Tools>diruse d:\ /, /*  /m

    Size (mb)  Files  Directory
       487.96   6344  SUB-TOTAL: D:\I386
         0.00      0  SUB-TOTAL: D:\msdownld.tmp
    17,707.74   3776  SUB-TOTAL: D:\Program Files
     1,548.70  10501  SUB-TOTAL: D:\RECYCLER
         0.93      8  SUB-TOTAL: D:\suspect mail
     8,811.30     12  SUB-TOTAL: D:\System Volume Information
     1,629.97   5439  SUB-TOTAL: D:\tech
     6,334.64  36604  SUB-TOTAL: D:\Users
         0.00      0  SUB-TOTAL: D:\WUTemp
    36,521.25  62684  TOTAL

Culprit identified.
there is nearly 9 GB in System Volume Information.

Can anyone suggest why that is so high?

The C drive by comparision has System Volume Information of 0.02MBytes

Thanks
  David

Again, Have you enabled Volume Shadow Copy?

If so, then that's why there's 9 GB (By the way, try TreeSize - I'm reasonably certain it will NOT show ANY use in the System Volume Information folder because TreeSize cannot count space occupied by files you do not have access to (NTFS Permissions)

Hi leew,

Under disk properties, Shadow Copies tab, it is disabled for both drives.

Where do I look for system restore in Windows 2003?

Regards
  David

Then I would suspect the Content Indexing service.

The following is from: http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2003/11/20/55764.aspx

Content Indexing Service databases for fast file searches. This is also the source of the cidaemon.exe process: That is the content indexer itself, busy scanning your files and building its database so you can search for them quickly. (If you created a lot of data in a short time, the content indexer service gets all excited trying to index it.)

Hi,

Its not Indexing as this is disabled and I can't see the cidaemon.exe running in task manager.

Distributed Link Tracking Server is also disabled. But Distributed File System is on automatic - I don't think we are using this, but could one of the users have set up syncrohisation to offline files or something and could this be causing it?

Regards
  David

Can I assume that Exchange is installed to the D drive..

Has you mail coming in to your org increase over the last weeks..

1st place that I would check is the users mailbox sizes, and the size of your Information Stores, as these could be growing daily..

Also depending on the size, it might be a good idea to run a defrag on the Private and maybe Public information stores, to clear up some disk space.

Sean,

It's not the Exchange Store - Exchange doesn't store it's data in the System Volume Information folder - and we've established that's where the usage is coming from.

Ok,

Then in Windows Explorer, make all files. and protected systems files visable..

You should now see System Volume Information folder

Goto Properties and then Secuirty Tab and add yourself..

Apply, and try and access the System Volume Information folder

Looks like your logs are filling up, check to see how many logs there are and sizes..

Then post the results..

Hi,

Some results.

D:\System Volume Information>dir /a /od
 Volume in drive D is Data
 Volume Serial Number is D088-8ED2

 Directory of D:\System Volume Information

03/01/2005  02:59 PM            20,480 tracking.log
07/06/2005  02:22 PM                 0 MountPointManagerRemoteDatabase
09/29/2006  11:01 PM       541,331,456 4{3808876b-c176-4e48-b7ae-04046e6cc752}
10/02/2006  10:02 PM     1,363,234,816 5{3808876b-c176-4e48-b7ae-04046e6cc752}
10/03/2006  10:03 PM       792,645,632 6{3808876b-c176-4e48-b7ae-04046e6cc752}
10/04/2006  10:03 PM       903,749,632 7{3808876b-c176-4e48-b7ae-04046e6cc752}
10/05/2006  10:02 PM       901,439,488 8{3808876b-c176-4e48-b7ae-04046e6cc752}
10/06/2006  10:01 PM       859,848,704 9{3808876b-c176-4e48-b7ae-04046e6cc752}
10/09/2006  10:02 PM     1,232,822,272 10{3808876b-c176-4e48-b7ae-04046e6cc752}
10/10/2006  10:02 PM       761,716,736 11{3808876b-c176-4e48-b7ae-04046e6cc752}
10/11/2006  10:02 PM       938,795,008 12{3808876b-c176-4e48-b7ae-04046e6cc752}
10/12/2006  10:00 PM    <DIR>          ..
10/12/2006  10:00 PM    <DIR>          .
10/12/2006  10:02 PM     1,094,443,008 13{3808876b-c176-4e48-b7ae-04046e6cc752}
10/13/2006  05:00 AM       838,860,800 15{3808876b-c176-4e48-b7ae-04046e6cc752}
              13 File(s) 10,228,908,032 bytes
               2 Dir(s)  12,515,131,392 bytes free

Sean: This started off because I was concerned at disk usage growth, and that it was growing by 1GB per day.

I then found 10GB of disk I couldn't account for, and it is in the SVI area.

Once I started poking around in here there is a file per day (per business day it appears) of around the 1GB I'm looking for.

Now I'm trying to find out what is creating these files, and they do appear to be recent.

Folks, I think that we are close to having answered my orginal question, and may need to ask another one if the identity and use of these files is too involved.

Thanks for your help.
  David

Note the file dates and times - what happens at 10pm every night...?

Don't even know if you'll be able to read it, but is there anything in the tracking.log file?

Hi Folks,

Leew:
As the document instructs, I stopped the Volume Shadow Copy service, and the files in question vanished.

Many thanks.

Sean:
Thanks for the thoughts.

Regards
  David