"Missing" hard-drive space

Yea, did that.  Sorry, I should have included that in my original problem description.  I also reset the offline file cache.

OK, tried winderstats.  It shows exactly the same thing as selecting all files/folders then going to properties.  Does not tell me anything about the "missing" space I'm trying to find.

From your responses I would guess you've tried the usual suspects - drive cleanup, delete old MS updates, logs, de-fragment and prune folder tree stucure check virtual storage etc.

Beyond that I would be looking at partition or SMART failure investigation, if the drive is failing the driver may be steadily allocating your 'free space' to cover sectors it expect  

Have not deleted MS updates, but I can see those in the Windows folder so know exactly how much space they are consuming.  Same with logs and such.

I have not tried to defragment, primarily because every time I get into the system it is so low on space that defragment would not work.  I might be able to run that tonight now that I have some working space.  I honestly do not hold out much hope there though....not when I'm trying to find a 11GB chunk of space.

Prune folder tree and check virtual storage?


This is a HP system, so no IBM stuff.  But I did check HP's equiv and did not find anything there.  On our HP's the recovery creates visibale files....but maybe worth digging into that just a bit more to see if they are also doing something on the "we aren't showing you this" side.  But also keep in mind that I am showing all hiden files / folders.  Even the IBM stuff I would be able to see and report on in their hidden folder.  I really think this has to be a Windows XP thing since Microsoft is the only one I've seen breaking the rules by making hidden system areas that do not reveal when properties are set to show hidden and "hidden system" files / folders.

Nope, no automatic imaging.  This is a fresh and generic XP install joined to AD domain.  Basic office automation software (Word, Excel, etc) deployed via group policy.

Is there windows1 folder on c: drive?

One way to find a suspect is running o&o defrag trial on this system. It will show where you do have big chunks of data on the disk.

Nope, no windows1 folder.  By the way, this is a fresh build.  This user's old machine was in-line to be refreshed, so when she started complaining about wierd problems we just pulled her system and dropped in a replacement system.

First time she logged in everything was synced, exhausing drive space.  So of course the new system started acting just like the old one.  Looked at it and found the issue low (about 119Mb) space.  Made her clean off all her personal stuff so now we shold be fine.  It's just that after she deleted all of her pictures and music, the drive space did not come back to where it should be (yes, emptied the recycle bin).

Although it's not a Lenovo/IBM system, just FYI the RRBackups folder does NOT show any contents even when showing hidden & system files -- not sure how they accomplish that, but it shows zero size.

Not aware of any HP equivalent, however.

Although it's not likely to show anything WinDirStat didn't show, just in case I would run TreeSize [http://www.jam-software.com/freeware/ ].    Be sure you've set the view options in Explorer to show hidden and system files before running it.    If the issue is a hidden system folder somewhere this should show it.

It was suggested above that you turn off System Restore -- and you indicated you already did it.    How much space did that free up?     Also, is hibernation disabled?   [If so, confirm that there are no residual hiberfil.sys entries.

I just thought of this: if you run the standard XP disc defragmentation and run 'Analyze', how large (%) is the unmovable part of the disc? I think it's color is green.

Found it!  Altris System Recovery agent pre-loaded on HP systems.  Stange thing is I never used it, but it was sure hogging up the space.  I uninstalled the recovery agent and presto!  All of my drive space returned.  Thanks for all the good input.

Thanks for the help guys.  I really do not like programs that hide their disk space usage -- no reason for it other than to make troubleshooting more difficult!

Sounds like Altris System Recovery is the HP equivalent of Lenovo/IBM's Rescue & Recovery.    I've never been a fan of programs that "backup" your system & data "in place" -- i.e. on the same partition as the data they're backing up => and it's even worse that they make it so "invisible"

No, me neither.  I suppose a backup is a backup....but I'd rather have it safely tucked away on another drive!