Ok, I'm back
First point... This shouldn't be happening. You should be able to see the
actual space in the disk.
That being said...
A friend here told me the following:
---
Something a bit similar to this happened to me in XP.
In *my* case, what happened was that I had the XXXXX (some
antivirus/protection application) installed and it has an enhanced recycle
bin or something like that.
Basically what it did was that every time I uninstalled a program (or
deleted certain files), that software would move the data to some hidden
place in the disk that only the said software could see.
I imagine it had a file system filter driver installed so that it obscured
files from the system. This means there is no way to make these files to
show up in Windows Explorer or something like that.
It was so annoying! And it may be the case of our customer. This is simple
to test, however: all he has to do is install some super large program (say,
a modern PC game) and then uninstall it afterwards, and see if there is disk
space reclaimed by the uninstall operation. If there's not, then he probably
is a victim of such "utility". If this is the case, then the only way he can
reclaim his lost 50GB is via that app. (And for some reason, I couldn't
reclaim all the space, when I had that installed).
---
Let me know if that info gives you some insight!
--Malu
"Jeff V. Pulver" <pulver@xxxxxx-design.com> wrote in message
news:%23EbXXxYlIHA.4684@xxxxxx
> Dear Malu:
>
>>> I have to be honest with you, I perform the same steps you described in
>>> my system and it worked fine - it reports the used disk space that I'm
>>> actually using. << >
> This is a start; I am talking with someone from MS. I can provide you with
> screen shots, of Vista functions, showing the disk usage. In addition, I
> am running WinDirStat (http://windirstat.info/). It cannot see the files,
> but it determines they are there by doing the same math I did. Setting
> Options | Show Unknown, it shows the size of the missing files, as a
> single entity called, "Unknown.".
>
>>> There is a stats software that I like, but it's shareware - free to try
>>> for 30 days. You might want to try this. It gives you a list of folders
>>> that contains "unknown" files, so seems to give you little bit more
>>> information. >
> http://www.sixty-five.cc/sm/
>
> Let me know what you find <<
>
> I installed that software. It sort of found the mystery files. Instead of
> "Unknown" it is calling them, "Unscannaed." The graphics for that space
> also says: "Unscannable folders: 42."
>
> So, why does the Properties of the Drive show the files but no other
> native MS software mentions anything about them? On the same system I
> have a second drive, identical to the first. The two numbers match exactly
> on that drive.
>
> What is really frustrating is this was to become my new Production system.
> I built the computer, performed a Clean Install of Windows Vista Ultimate,
> then I installed all of my required software. I was really surprised when
> I first noticed how much disk space was used. I also noted a similar
> problem on the Vista beta and I reported it but I did not hear back on
> that issue. I have another Vista ultimate system, and the numbers for the
> two functions are close to the same for the C drive.
>
> Thank you.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Jeff V. Pulver
>