Disk space 'disappearing'

Hello,

The disk space on my system drive appears to be disappearing. According to
the drive properties, I have a 4,055 MB partition, of which 3,653 MB is
currently used, leaving 402MB free

If I analyise the contents of the drive, the following space is reported as
being used.

Program File 1,475 MB
WINNT 1,312 MB
[root] 257 MB
Inetpub 57 MB
Documents & settings 41 MB
Other folders (Total) 0.1 MB

TOTAL 3,142 MB

Does anyone know where the missing 511 MB is and how I can get it back?

I have checked that the above figures for the space used by the folders are
the actual disk space used (total of file sizes is 3,105 MB) and as far as I
can tell, I have included all hidden/system folders/files.

The only folder I have any doubt about, is 'System Volume Information' which
I cannot seem to access in anyway.

I am running SBS 2000 with SP4 on a Dell PowerEdge 2400 with a RAID 5 disk
array.

Thanks

Steve Everington

Marina
Fri Aug 13 03:16:29 CDT 2004

Hi Steve,

Pagefile? Tempfiles, Logfiles? You will have to do a further analysis to
find out what is needing the space.

--
Regards,

Marina
Microsoft SBS-MVP

"Steve Everington" <steve.everington@pannellsigns.co.uk> schreef in bericht
news:%235PknjQgEHA.1188@TK2MSFTNGP11.phx.gbl...
> Hello,
>
> The disk space on my system drive appears to be disappearing. According
to
> the drive properties, I have a 4,055 MB partition, of which 3,653 MB is
> currently used, leaving 402MB free
>
> If I analyise the contents of the drive, the following space is reported
as
> being used.
>
> Program File 1,475 MB
> WINNT 1,312 MB
> [root] 257 MB
> Inetpub 57 MB
> Documents & settings 41 MB
> Other folders (Total) 0.1 MB
>
> TOTAL 3,142 MB
>
> Does anyone know where the missing 511 MB is and how I can get it back?
>
> I have checked that the above figures for the space used by the folders
are
> the actual disk space used (total of file sizes is 3,105 MB) and as far as
I
> can tell, I have included all hidden/system folders/files.
>
> The only folder I have any doubt about, is 'System Volume Information'
which
> I cannot seem to access in anyway.
>
> I am running SBS 2000 with SP4 on a Dell PowerEdge 2400 with a RAID 5 disk
> array.
>
> Thanks
>
> Steve Everington
>
>

Steve
Fri Aug 13 04:22:29 CDT 2004

Steve Everington wrote:

> Hello,
>
> The disk space on my system drive appears to be disappearing.
> According to the drive properties, I have a 4,055 MB partition, of
> which 3,653 MB is currently used, leaving 402MB free
>
> If I analyise the contents of the drive, the following space is
> reported as being used.
>
> Program File 1,475 MB
> WINNT 1,312 MB
> [root] 257 MB
> Inetpub 57 MB
> Documents & settings 41 MB
> Other folders (Total) 0.1 MB
>
> TOTAL 3,142 MB
>

Is the "Program Files" bit growing? Have you checked the ExchSrvr logs
are being properly purged by regular backups (assuming the EDB files
are in C:\Program Files\ExchSrvr\MDBData)?

--
Steve Foster [SBS MVP]
---------------------------------------
MVPs do not work for Microsoft. Please reply only to the newsgroups.

Lanwench
Fri Aug 13 09:24:33 CDT 2004

There's a fabulous shareware utility called TreeSizePro from JAM Software -
google for it. It is what Explorer *ought* to have built in. It will show
you the contents of subfolders, sizes of files/folders therein, etc.

Note that that is a tiny system partition for an SBS2k or even W2k
server....move everything you can off of it. You can move your pagefile, you
really ought to move your Exchange dbs/logs elsewhere anyway, etc.....

Steve Everington wrote:
> Hello,
>
> The disk space on my system drive appears to be disappearing.
> According to the drive properties, I have a 4,055 MB partition, of
> which 3,653 MB is currently used, leaving 402MB free
>
> If I analyise the contents of the drive, the following space is
> reported as being used.
>
> Program File 1,475 MB
> WINNT 1,312 MB
> [root] 257 MB
> Inetpub 57 MB
> Documents & settings 41 MB
> Other folders (Total) 0.1 MB
>
> TOTAL 3,142 MB
>
> Does anyone know where the missing 511 MB is and how I can get it
> back?
>
> I have checked that the above figures for the space used by the
> folders are the actual disk space used (total of file sizes is 3,105
> MB) and as far as I can tell, I have included all hidden/system
> folders/files.
>
> The only folder I have any doubt about, is 'System Volume
> Information' which I cannot seem to access in anyway.
>
> I am running SBS 2000 with SP4 on a Dell PowerEdge 2400 with a RAID 5
> disk array.
>
> Thanks
>
> Steve Everington

Steve
Sat Aug 14 02:37:36 CDT 2004

Thanks for the replies...

Marina, Pagefile is included in the files in [root] (ie 256 or the 257mb),
tempfile & log files I assume are included in the space used by their parent
directores (eg space occupied by files in \Winnt\temp is included in the
total space reported as being used by \Winnt and it's sub-directories). My
problem is not so much what is needing the space, but where it has gone as
there appears to be a mis-match between the total space reported as being
used by *ALL* the files/directories, the free space and the total disk size.

Steve, I am not aware of the Program Files directory growing (other than
because of log files / BadMail directory) and I am running regular (Daily)
Exchange aware backups (Veritas). My EDB files are not on this drive, but
are on another (125Gb) partition. I do try to keep on top of all the log
files anyway, but see above re the mis-match.

Lanwench, I have TreeSizePro already - it was that I was mainly using to get
the statistics... I agree it is a tiny system partition - I wanted to make
it 8Gb and created an appropriate raid container for it, but it seemed no
matter what I tried, when I originally installed the Windows 2000 Server
part of SBS2000, it would not let me create a boot partition greater than
4Gb and it will not let me extended it now I have created it. I still have
the other 4Gb in the container waiting unused if anyone knows how! Most of
the pagefile (all but 256Mb), Exchange (except for the BadMail directory -
how do I move that?), SQL server data files, Spool files, SUS files,
urlcache, ClntApps, Faxstore and User Shared Folders are all off the boot
partition already. I not sure of anything else I can move!

Steve Everington

"Steve Everington" <steve.everington@pannellsigns.co.uk> wrote in message
news:%235PknjQgEHA.1188@TK2MSFTNGP11.phx.gbl...
> Hello,
>
> The disk space on my system drive appears to be disappearing. According
to
> the drive properties, I have a 4,055 MB partition, of which 3,653 MB is
> currently used, leaving 402MB free
>
> If I analyise the contents of the drive, the following space is reported
as
> being used.
>
> Program File 1,475 MB
> WINNT 1,312 MB
> [root] 257 MB
> Inetpub 57 MB
> Documents & settings 41 MB
> Other folders (Total) 0.1 MB
>
> TOTAL 3,142 MB
>
> Does anyone know where the missing 511 MB is and how I can get it back?
>
> I have checked that the above figures for the space used by the folders
are
> the actual disk space used (total of file sizes is 3,105 MB) and as far as
I
> can tell, I have included all hidden/system folders/files.
>
> The only folder I have any doubt about, is 'System Volume Information'
which
> I cannot seem to access in anyway.
>
> I am running SBS 2000 with SP4 on a Dell PowerEdge 2400 with a RAID 5 disk
> array.
>
> Thanks
>
> Steve Everington
>
>

Jim
Sat Aug 14 11:24:36 CDT 2004

I know it is water over the dam but if you boot off the cd you can do
probably any size partitions. I think our company has set up over 40
SBS2000 and they all have partitons of 8-15 gigs.

You can move that little bit of page file over to another partiton.
Make sure that you logs are really going away. You can even move the
Exchange logs to another partition.

Do you usual search for *.dmp, *.log and *.tmp to see if you are
missing and odd junk. You can remove the old uninstall patch files
from the Windows folder. Also look in anti-virus folders for
quaranteen and old update files.

I just worked on a Server 2000 machine that had the same problem of a
4 gig C: drive. I fixed it by doing a swing upgrade to SBS2003. I
installed a Server 2003 and made it a dc. This got me all my user
accounts. I used another hard drive to save all the user files. I
installed SBS 2003 on the new server by removing all the old
partitions and making them "proper" sizes. I think I used 12 gigs. I
then migrated the user accounts back to the "new" SBS 2000. You could
do the same thing with your SBS2000 but with Exchange in the mix it
gets a bit sloppier. Server Magic for partition resizing would be less
work.

"Steve Everington" <steve.everington@pannellsigns.co.uk> wrote:

>Thanks for the replies...
>
>Marina, Pagefile is included in the files in [root] (ie 256 or the 257mb),
>tempfile & log files I assume are included in the space used by their parent
>directores (eg space occupied by files in \Winnt\temp is included in the
>total space reported as being used by \Winnt and it's sub-directories). My
>problem is not so much what is needing the space, but where it has gone as
>there appears to be a mis-match between the total space reported as being
>used by *ALL* the files/directories, the free space and the total disk size.
>
>Steve, I am not aware of the Program Files directory growing (other than
>because of log files / BadMail directory) and I am running regular (Daily)
>Exchange aware backups (Veritas). My EDB files are not on this drive, but
>are on another (125Gb) partition. I do try to keep on top of all the log
>files anyway, but see above re the mis-match.
>
>Lanwench, I have TreeSizePro already - it was that I was mainly using to get
>the statistics... I agree it is a tiny system partition - I wanted to make
>it 8Gb and created an appropriate raid container for it, but it seemed no
>matter what I tried, when I originally installed the Windows 2000 Server
>part of SBS2000, it would not let me create a boot partition greater than
>4Gb and it will not let me extended it now I have created it. I still have
>the other 4Gb in the container waiting unused if anyone knows how! Most of
>the pagefile (all but 256Mb), Exchange (except for the BadMail directory -
>how do I move that?), SQL server data files, Spool files, SUS files,
>urlcache, ClntApps, Faxstore and User Shared Folders are all off the boot
>partition already. I not sure of anything else I can move!
>
>Steve Everington
>
>"Steve Everington" <steve.everington@pannellsigns.co.uk> wrote in message
>news:%235PknjQgEHA.1188@TK2MSFTNGP11.phx.gbl...
>> Hello,
>>
>> The disk space on my system drive appears to be disappearing. According
>to
>> the drive properties, I have a 4,055 MB partition, of which 3,653 MB is
>> currently used, leaving 402MB free
>>
>> If I analyise the contents of the drive, the following space is reported
>as
>> being used.
>>
>> Program File 1,475 MB
>> WINNT 1,312 MB
>> [root] 257 MB
>> Inetpub 57 MB
>> Documents & settings 41 MB
>> Other folders (Total) 0.1 MB
>>
>> TOTAL 3,142 MB
>>
>> Does anyone know where the missing 511 MB is and how I can get it back?
>>
>> I have checked that the above figures for the space used by the folders
>are
>> the actual disk space used (total of file sizes is 3,105 MB) and as far as
>I
>> can tell, I have included all hidden/system folders/files.
>>
>> The only folder I have any doubt about, is 'System Volume Information'
>which
>> I cannot seem to access in anyway.
>>
>> I am running SBS 2000 with SP4 on a Dell PowerEdge 2400 with a RAID 5 disk
>> array.
>>
>> Thanks
>>
>> Steve Everington
>>
>>
>

Jim B. SBS MVP
remove the mvp to send email

Tim
Sun Aug 15 22:23:04 CDT 2004

You could - if brave - use the diskpart /extend command in Windows 2003 or
Windows XP by installing a dummy copy onto another drive. However as you are
no doubt aware, the MS KB advises against this even though it has worked
everytime I have used it and anyone I know has used it....

- Tim


"Steve Everington" <steve.everington@pannellsigns.co.uk> wrote in message
news:uQSkTGdgEHA.3348@TK2MSFTNGP12.phx.gbl...
> Thanks for the replies...
>
> Marina, Pagefile is included in the files in [root] (ie 256 or the
> 257mb),
> tempfile & log files I assume are included in the space used by their
> parent
> directores (eg space occupied by files in \Winnt\temp is included in the
> total space reported as being used by \Winnt and it's sub-directories).
> My
> problem is not so much what is needing the space, but where it has gone as
> there appears to be a mis-match between the total space reported as being
> used by *ALL* the files/directories, the free space and the total disk
> size.
>
> Steve, I am not aware of the Program Files directory growing (other than
> because of log files / BadMail directory) and I am running regular (Daily)
> Exchange aware backups (Veritas). My EDB files are not on this drive, but
> are on another (125Gb) partition. I do try to keep on top of all the log
> files anyway, but see above re the mis-match.
>
> Lanwench, I have TreeSizePro already - it was that I was mainly using to
> get
> the statistics... I agree it is a tiny system partition - I wanted to
> make
> it 8Gb and created an appropriate raid container for it, but it seemed no
> matter what I tried, when I originally installed the Windows 2000 Server
> part of SBS2000, it would not let me create a boot partition greater than
> 4Gb and it will not let me extended it now I have created it. I still
> have
> the other 4Gb in the container waiting unused if anyone knows how! Most
> of
> the pagefile (all but 256Mb), Exchange (except for the BadMail directory -
> how do I move that?), SQL server data files, Spool files, SUS files,
> urlcache, ClntApps, Faxstore and User Shared Folders are all off the boot
> partition already. I not sure of anything else I can move!
>
> Steve Everington
>
> "Steve Everington" <steve.everington@pannellsigns.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:%235PknjQgEHA.1188@TK2MSFTNGP11.phx.gbl...
>> Hello,
>>
>> The disk space on my system drive appears to be disappearing. According
> to
>> the drive properties, I have a 4,055 MB partition, of which 3,653 MB is
>> currently used, leaving 402MB free
>>
>> If I analyise the contents of the drive, the following space is reported
> as
>> being used.
>>
>> Program File 1,475 MB
>> WINNT 1,312 MB
>> [root] 257 MB
>> Inetpub 57 MB
>> Documents & settings 41 MB
>> Other folders (Total) 0.1 MB
>>
>> TOTAL 3,142 MB
>>
>> Does anyone know where the missing 511 MB is and how I can get it back?
>>
>> I have checked that the above figures for the space used by the folders
> are
>> the actual disk space used (total of file sizes is 3,105 MB) and as far
>> as
> I
>> can tell, I have included all hidden/system folders/files.
>>
>> The only folder I have any doubt about, is 'System Volume Information'
> which
>> I cannot seem to access in anyway.
>>
>> I am running SBS 2000 with SP4 on a Dell PowerEdge 2400 with a RAID 5
>> disk
>> array.
>>
>> Thanks
>>
>> Steve Everington
>>
>>
>
>

Steve
Tue Aug 17 12:16:09 CDT 2004

Found out a bit more about my problem. The "missing" 500mb seems to be "in
use by the system" - according to ChkDsk, 579,950 KB is "in use by the
system". I thought this meant the MFT, but using other tools (Diskeeper),
the MFT is reported as being 30,639KB with 30,011 records in use (97%).

Does anyone know what else in the "system" might be using my other 536Mb of
space?

Steve Everington

"Steve Everington" <steve.everington@pannellsigns.co.uk> wrote in message
news:uQSkTGdgEHA.3348@TK2MSFTNGP12.phx.gbl...
> Thanks for the replies...
>
> Marina, Pagefile is included in the files in [root] (ie 256 or the
257mb),
> tempfile & log files I assume are included in the space used by their
parent
> directores (eg space occupied by files in \Winnt\temp is included in the
> total space reported as being used by \Winnt and it's sub-directories).
My
> problem is not so much what is needing the space, but where it has gone as
> there appears to be a mis-match between the total space reported as being
> used by *ALL* the files/directories, the free space and the total disk
size.
>
> Steve, I am not aware of the Program Files directory growing (other than
> because of log files / BadMail directory) and I am running regular (Daily)
> Exchange aware backups (Veritas). My EDB files are not on this drive, but
> are on another (125Gb) partition. I do try to keep on top of all the log
> files anyway, but see above re the mis-match.
>
> Lanwench, I have TreeSizePro already - it was that I was mainly using to
get
> the statistics... I agree it is a tiny system partition - I wanted to
make
> it 8Gb and created an appropriate raid container for it, but it seemed no
> matter what I tried, when I originally installed the Windows 2000 Server
> part of SBS2000, it would not let me create a boot partition greater than
> 4Gb and it will not let me extended it now I have created it. I still
have
> the other 4Gb in the container waiting unused if anyone knows how! Most
of
> the pagefile (all but 256Mb), Exchange (except for the BadMail directory -
> how do I move that?), SQL server data files, Spool files, SUS files,
> urlcache, ClntApps, Faxstore and User Shared Folders are all off the boot
> partition already. I not sure of anything else I can move!
>
> Steve Everington
>
> "Steve Everington" <steve.everington@pannellsigns.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:%235PknjQgEHA.1188@TK2MSFTNGP11.phx.gbl...
> > Hello,
> >
> > The disk space on my system drive appears to be disappearing. According
> to
> > the drive properties, I have a 4,055 MB partition, of which 3,653 MB is
> > currently used, leaving 402MB free
> >
> > If I analyise the contents of the drive, the following space is reported
> as
> > being used.
> >
> > Program File 1,475 MB
> > WINNT 1,312 MB
> > [root] 257 MB
> > Inetpub 57 MB
> > Documents & settings 41 MB
> > Other folders (Total) 0.1 MB
> >
> > TOTAL 3,142 MB
> >
> > Does anyone know where the missing 511 MB is and how I can get it back?
> >
> > I have checked that the above figures for the space used by the folders
> are
> > the actual disk space used (total of file sizes is 3,105 MB) and as far
as
> I
> > can tell, I have included all hidden/system folders/files.
> >
> > The only folder I have any doubt about, is 'System Volume Information'
> which
> > I cannot seem to access in anyway.
> >
> > I am running SBS 2000 with SP4 on a Dell PowerEdge 2400 with a RAID 5
disk
> > array.
> >
> > Thanks
> >
> > Steve Everington
> >
> >
>
>