I've got a server here that has a 60gb D partition which is reporting about 8gb free space. The only trouble is that there only seems to be about 20gb of data on there , so there's 32gb that has got lost somewhere.

I've had this happen before on laptops and there it was easiest to wipe it and rebuild but that's trickier here.

I do have it set to display hidden files and folders, so that's not the problem.

Running CHKDSK shows no issues with the file system so that's not the problem.

If I run a defrag program with a graphical display such as defraggler it shows that the disk is mostly full , so there must be something there - I just can't see it.

Any suggestions before I format D: and restore it from the backups (which reminds me , I must check to see how much data that the software sees....)?

its not shadow copies/system restore is it? - that kinda stuff usually stored in "system volume information" folder which is still hidden unless hide protected operating system files is unchecked as well as hidden files and folders

Nope , Shadow copies are disabled and I've got the "hide protected...." stuff turned off.

can you spot anything using defraggler to see whats in some of the blocks?

Could it be a permissions issue on a folder somewhere stopping getting the true file-level size?

Empty your recycle bin

Hehehe , what is this "windows for muppets?"

Yes , the recycle bin is empty.

I think Col is onto something - I've found a few directories that nobody had permissions on which I'm attacking now.

Hehehe , what is this "windows for muppets?"

Yes , the recycle bin is empty.

I think Col is onto something - I've found a few directories that nobody had permissions on which I'm attacking now.

:woowoo:

been there, seen it, got the tshirt in many a fileserver migration - its probably someone trying to hide a stash of pr0n/mp3's lol

:woowoo:

been there, seen it, got the tshirt in many a fileserver migration - its probably someone trying to hide a stash of pr0n/mp3's lol

I've had a fileserver fall over in the past cause a salesperson decided that he needed a backup of his iTunes folder and dropped 60gb of data on there!

I had a similar issue a couple of years ago when a volume had been recycled - quotas had been used previously but not removed. Had me scratching my head for a fair few hours.

Download and install the trial version of "Treesize Pro" and then right click on the D: drive and select "Treesize", this will show you how much data is in each folder including folders you dont have permission to access normally.

If you dont want to install the trial on the server, then use a desktop and may a drive letter to D$ on the server and do the same thing.

One thing to remember is due to cluster sizes, apparently small files can take a large amount of space. For example with a cluster size of 16K, a 1K file will take 16K of disk space since only one entry can be written per cluster so in this example 15K of disk space is wasted.