Journal #8554

Posted 8 years ago2015-05-25 03:14:31 UTC
I seem to be missing ~100GB off my hard drive. I don't know where they went.

Last time I checked, I had ~150GB free. Last night I happened to notice the red bar, looks like now I have 42GB free. The only thing that happened since then is Windows updates and installing a gift game I got on Steam that took up less than 1GB.

Disk cleanup said it could clear some 500MB. Not quite enough. Getting it to count Windows update files, it said 6GB. That's better, BUT THERE'S STILL 94GB UNACCOUNTED FOR.

Has anyone ever experienced this?

12 Comments

Commented 8 years ago2015-05-25 05:35:24 UTC Comment #62672
Are you sure you're not just mistaken and you didn't actually have that much space available? Otherwise, a program like SpaceMonger will give you a good visual representation of what's taking up a lot of space on your drive.
Commented 8 years ago2015-05-25 05:38:46 UTC Comment #62677
Corrupt file system ? I have a drive in a server which has lost 150gb due to corruption, basically an empty folder that takes up 150gigs.

Try SpaceSniffer or TreeSize to see whats on the drive.
Commented 8 years ago2015-05-25 07:20:51 UTC Comment #62678
I'm quite sure I had somewhere around 150GB free. I don't remember the exact number but I do remember reaching some 110 a bit earlier a few months ago when I uninstalled a number of games I wasn't playing. So even assuming 110GB free, it's still 70GB somehow unaccounted for.

I guess I'll look into those...
Commented 8 years ago2015-05-25 07:36:13 UTC Comment #62674
Check your hard drive's health with HD Tune.
For visualizing disk space taken by folders I recommend SpaceSniffer. It's fast, small and doesn't require installation.
Commented 8 years ago2015-05-25 07:45:32 UTC Comment #62679
I just tried SpaceSniffer. It shows 105GB of "unaccessible space". Kind of the part I'm missing, so I wonder if the hard drive is having a problem.
Commented 8 years ago2015-05-25 08:22:02 UTC Comment #62682
Just test the hard drive.
Some times you forget to allocate it, or as rfe said it gets corrupted.
Commented 8 years ago2015-05-25 11:20:23 UTC Comment #62675
Also, be careful. The internet has just been hit by some new ransomware and nobody really knows where it comes from and who are the authors.
It encrypts your files with RSA 2048, which basically means you're fucked if you have important files and don't get the decryption key, or have a quantum computer.
Commented 8 years ago2015-05-25 13:18:12 UTC Comment #62683
...
Disconnects PC from the Internet
Commented 8 years ago2015-05-25 20:33:09 UTC Comment #62680
I assume something like that would give me some sort of message telling me that, otherwise it wouldn't be called "ransomware". And I haven't had any such messages. Besides, it's supposed to be free space, and targeting free space is probably not as lucrative. Fortunately I have my important files backed up in a network drive. I'm still inclined towards hard drive corruption/failure.
Commented 8 years ago2015-05-25 23:29:02 UTC Comment #62673
SKYNET is taking over! :o

TBH I've never had a problem like this, but it sounds scary. I would clone the drive to an external, format your HDD, and restore with the clone image.

Maybe also start shopping for HDDs just in case =)
Commented 8 years ago2015-05-26 02:32:32 UTC Comment #62676
Haven't you used HD Tune in the mean time? You're just making us curious :P.
Commented 8 years ago2015-05-26 19:48:55 UTC Comment #62681
I did and it displays all sectors as OK, no sectors are marked as damaged. So it seems not to be a hardware problem.

[edit] And then I thought of running Spacesniffer with administrator rights. I no longer have 105GB of "unaccessible space", and now I have 109GB of System Volume Information. So system restore points suddenly decided to take up 100GB. The setting was to allow a max disk usage of 25% of its total capacity, I brought it down to 12% and now my free space is at 96GB. I'd say it's a bit better.

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