1.3 GB deleted, but not deleted, so where are they?

[Curt]

I was curious, and ran Photorec_win, in order to restore some files. But to my surprise it stopped after 15% and said I had no more free disk space - (I was not yet aware that Photorec must restore to another partition / disk only) - it had already restored 1.3 GB!! I inspected the restored files, and deleted the lot, but Win2K ran out of air and somehow didn't perform the delete process the right way, because even though the 1.3 GB has been removed from the folder and from the bin, they are still 'somewhere' around, and is strangeling my PC, because I have no free  space left.

Any idea as to where these 1.3 GB might be, and how to delete them (again)??

[Crush]

Perhaps your cluster-tables are not cleaned the right way.
Open a dosbox and type chkdsk c: /F (or the drive where you had the files) type Y(es) asks you to check the volume at a new system restart.
Then restart your computer and let chkdsk do its job.
After this the clusters should be free again. Otherwise the files have NOT been deleted (perhaps moved?)

A good restore-program should tell or at least warn you to use another drive. It could be that a lot of the files are destroyed now.

[Curt]

Perhaps your cluster-tables are not cleaned the right way.
Open a dosbox and type chkdsk c: /F (or the drive where you had the files) type Y(es) asks you to check the volume at a new system restart.
Then restart your computer and let chkdsk do its job.
After this the clusters should be free again. Otherwise the files have NOT been deleted (perhaps moved?)

I did so, but the results seemed to be okay - and nothing has changed.

I have searched the PC and cannot find any folders this big. 

[Crush]

Then search for filenames that have been modified at the specified time. The explorer is not good enough - it only let you select the day. Try another explorer-replacement that can search for hours and minutes.

[Curt]

I found a video file that somehow had grown from 10 MB to 1.38 GB, so now the problem has been solved.

Thanks a lot for your help! 

[tinjaw]

Not sure if you checked, or if this even applies to your particular issue, but don't forget about the recycle bin. When you "delete" files, many times you are just moving them to the recycle bin. You therefore won't see an increase in free disc space. You need to either empty the recycle bin or do a "real delete" of the file in the first place. To do a "real delete", skipping the recycle bin, hold down the shift key when clicking on the delete menu items.

[Crush]

I thaught that files over 1GB aren´t moved to the recycle bin 
The shift-key-function was new to me...

[Carol Haynes]

The size of file allowed in the recylce bin depends on how big your bin is (I think) under NTFS. If a file is too big you get a warning message asking if you want to delete the file permanently.

The problem to me sounds like parts of the drive are marked as in use but are not actually referenced in the file allocation table. This happens a lot in NTFS and the only way I know of to get rid of them is by running a utility such as Perfect Disc in offline mode on the drive. PD can remove excess fragments from the file allocation table and thus free up the full available space.

[jgpaiva]

The size of file allowed in the recylce bin depends on how big your bin is (I think) under NTFS. If a file is too big you get a warning message asking if you want to delete the file permanently.

Actually, that's something i find strange. For some reason, although you can set manually the size of the recycle bin, its max size is at max 4GB!
That's a limitation, even if you set it for more than that, it'll always reset to that value.
For me, that's unfortunate, as i use the 'don't confirm on recycle' option, and would love if the recycle bin worked as a 'marked for deletion' kind of thing.

[f0dder]

jgpaiva: do you use FAT32 partitions, by any chance?

[jgpaiva]

jgpaiva: do you use FAT32 partitions, by any chance?

No, f0dder, only ntfs.
BTW, here's an interesting article: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/136517
I had no idea that there could be files in the recycle bin that can't be deleted. I think i have a similar problem in one of my disks.

[Curt]

BTW, here's an interesting article: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/136517
I had no idea that there could be files in the recycle bin that can't be deleted. I think i have a similar problem in one of my disks.

- but is it like this today?

kb/136517 APPLIES TO
• Microsoft Windows 95
• Microsoft Windows 98 Standard Edition
• Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0 Standard Edition
• Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 4.0 Developer Edition

[jgpaiva]

- but is it like this today?

Good point, Curt. I guess they must have fixed this by now.
Still, i find it intriguing that when i browse the RECYCLER protected folder with XYplorer on one of my disks, i find a file there that isn't in my recycle bin