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Disk Space is reported incorrectly

Just joined this site and I am not 100% sure if this is the correct format, but this is what I have. I have DFS setup on two servers. One is 2003 and the other is 2003 R2. I am not sure if that is important or not, but it is why I need to figure out what is going on here. The FRS staging folder is on another drive. I used TreeSize and determined that there is 30 GB of data on the 75 GB drive in question. Windows shows 9 GB free. I have looked through several different posts, but none seem to answer this part of the issue. The used space in explorer shows 66.5 GB. I can double click on the D: drive and right click on the two folders there, do the math and it adds to 30 GB (thereabout). Any ideas what could be accounting for the missing HD space? I have checked for fragmentation and run an error-check. The drive manager shows it as a healthy drive, but I need that missing space.

Sounds like hidden folders may be the culprit. Under Tools -> Folder Options -> View, enable the option to display hidden files/folders and disable hiding of protected OS files. You should have at least 2 new folders show up, RECYCLER and System Volume Information. There could also be a paging file on that drive that would be hidden as a protected OS file.

ASKER

Thanks for the response. Treesize pulls the recycler and it is only 626 KB. I tried to see the System Volume Information folder size, but I keep getting access denied and it shows 0. Can that folder possibly be 30 GB? I wouldn't think so. There are no other hidden or system files listed. Any other ideas?

ASKER

It was bothering me so I went ahead and added the Admin account to check the size of the sys vol info folder and it was only 20 KB.

Do you have snapshots running on the NAS? Depending on the frequency of the snapshots, those could get quite large. I would check into that, at least a good starting point. Hope that helps :)

ASKER

This is an area I am not familiar with. I do not have any kind of NAS appliance that I know of. I am only using DFS to synchronize the folders on these two DC's. Am i misunderstanding your suggestion? Is there somewhere I can check to look for snapshots?

Sorry wrong question

ASKER

I raised the point value on this one. I really need an answer and cannot find a reason for this incorrect reporting. I have read massive forums and tried everything they listed (except reformatting the drive) due to the inherent issues in doing so. Anyone that has any advice or explanations would be greatly appreciated.

Sounds like Volume Shadow Copy Service is taking up a lot of the drive space, take a look at this to check.

http://www.visualwin.com/VSS/Part2.html

ASKER

I had already checked shadow copy and it shows to be disabled. I checked again just to make sure and it is disabled on the drive in question, (on all drives actually). Any other ideas?

pagefile?

ASKER

Total paging file size for all drives is 1536 MB. Any other suggestions because I have exhausted everything I know regarding this type of issue (except for the dreaded reformat which i desperately want to avoid)?

It must be a corrupt file somewhere on the disk, Does TreeSize allow you to see individual file size also? If it does can you find anything? If it doesnt use another tool. I had a temp file at a customers site once taking up 10Gb!

ASKER

Treesize calculates every single file size and puts in a tree view. The size listed is the accumulation of every file on the drive. I am stuck on the corrupt file myself, but I do not how to correct it without dropping the drive, reformatting, and rebuilding the data. Even then, I am afraid I would just copy the problem again with the data. Do you know of another utility I could use to confirm what Treesize is reporting?

http://windirstat.info/

windirstat

ASKER

WinDirStat shows the total size as 37.9 GB which makes all the numbers make sense. The drive is actually 75 GB though according to Windows. In the select drive screen it shows the drive at 74.5 GB (WinDirStat) and when you select the drive and select the show unknown I see the missing 36.6 GB in the <Unknown> section. Can you elaborate on what this means?

Sounds like the hard drive is corrupt. Load eventvwr and see if there are any disk errors.

What hardware is this running on?

http://blog.windirstat.info/20061013/unknown-space/

ASKER

I found the same blog and read up on it and just bit the bullet. I am running a chkdsk /r/f on it now. I was trying to fix this without taking the drive offline, but oh well. Event viewer shows no disk errors. I figure it will be a bit until chkdsk gets through. I will let you know if the problem persists at that point.

Ok, Good Luck.

ASKER

So I think I am screwed here. After chkdsk completed, I still have 36.6 GB in some unknown area. My next step is the f word. I don't like the f-word. Any suggestions before I blow everything away?

Do you have system restore points enabled.

http://www.neowin.net/forum/?showtopic=91476

"Do you have system restore points enabled.

http://www.neowin.net/forum/?showtopic=91476"

System restore points are stored in System Volume Information, which he indicated is only 20KB after adding his admin account to the folder to check it.

Only other thing I can suggest is booting into a windows install cd and running "chkdsk /f" from the recovery console on that drive. And no, this is not the same as running a chkdsk from windows, recovery console chkdsk is more likely to find something wrong. Be sure to have your data backed up prior to attempting this step if you do attempt it.

ASKER

Been out of touch working on external projects. I am still left with no option at this point except the reformat of the drive. Not something I am looking forward to as it is a DC. I will be doing that here in a couple of weeks, unless someone can come up with anything else to try.

ASKER

If anyone is monitoring this thread, I still have yet to be able to take the DC down. The problem isn't getting worse, but it still exists. I want to post if the problem returns after the reformat on this thread so I apologize for the length of time this has taken. I am still accepting any ideas on the subject if anyone has any.

Just checking to see if a solution was found for this problem as I have the same issue. Thanks

ASKER

Actually I have not taken the time to trouble shoot this issue. I am administering six corporate networks and I have more pressing issues since I founf this issue. It hasn't been causing any additional problems as of yet. I am still hoping someone will stumble on this with something I haven't tried yet.

I found the solution for my version of this disk space reporting problem, its posted here:

https://www.experts-exchange.com/questions/24113521/Incorrect-Disk-Space-Reported-on-Windows-'03-Server.html?anchorAnswerId=23574925#a23574925

Hope it helps

ASKER

I will give this a shot when I can focus on this issue again. Thanks.

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