Disk Cleanup (Win 7) Deleting Files, Space Still Gone!

[Jingthing]

OK, in the last few days a strange phenom on my computer.

Downloading a torrent into vuze (not the actual torrenting but the initial entry into Vuze), and then it not happening (on different but not all torrents), noticed this process (stalled torrent entries into Vuze) was extremely rapidly eating up space on drive C. Much bigger use than the size of the files to be downloaded themselves, and fast. I have seen this behavior later and was able to reverse the decline by properly canceling the torrent input. For some reason at least one of them went really wrong and disk cleanup utility says 32 meg of temp internet space can be cleared. So I delete that 32 meg using the windows disk cleanup tool, it asks for confirm, I confirm and do it, and then, presto, the 32 megs are NOT cleared, the space is still used, and the 32 meg is no longer available to delete again. Ugh! Today I saw another 15 megs showing up in temp internet memory as deletable. I did, and still the space is used, and no longer available to delete. No viruses detected and using LEGAL Windows 7.

Any ideas?

Good thing I have a large drive but now want a bigger one. Losing 45 (at least) meg. for nothing isn't chopped liver.

In any case, I doubt I going to get that space back. Consider yourself warned if you use Vuze and are entering a new torrent, and you notice it just hanging for a long time, check your disk space to see if it is going down fast and/or better yet just CANCEL that torrent.

Edited November 14, 2010 by Jingthing

[Jingthing]

Correction, I meant gigabytes when I said megabytes.

[Jiu-Jitsu]

Take a look at what is clogging your HDD.

[Jingthing]

Thanks. I'll have a look. Another thing. When I look at the sizes of the big things on my C drive (all the folders directly under C) it adds up to MUCH LESS than the total space I am told I have. Perhaps that is normal for it to not up exactly? But way off?

Edited November 14, 2010 by Jingthing

[Supernova]

Have you checked the drive for errors? If not, run the check disk tool before exploring other options. Having free space marked as allocated in the master file table (MFT) is a common NTFS file system error.

Edited November 14, 2010 by Supernova

[astral]

In addition to the suggestions above try Undelete Home edition it will clear any "deleted" files still lurking on the disk

a real problem with large torrent files, then

follow with a scan with CCleaner

These keep my disk space maximised.

[FritsSikkink]

Cleaned your recycle bin ?

[Jingthing]

OK thanks again for the tips.

Here is the update.

Of course I always empty the recycle bin, but that's OK, sometimes people's hardware doesn't work because it isn't plugged in!

I ran chkdisk. However it was taking so long that I left it running while I was sleeping so I didn't see any error messages, and the space situation was still the same. That in itself seems strange to me; I don't remember chkdisk taking that long before on any machine I have had (first time I ran it on this current HD).

Since the OP, I have had more losses, two times, related the Vuze. Last night the memory on C went down to ZERO (losing a quick 20 Gbs). (I then freed up some new space and then ran chkdisk.)

I looked at the WinDirStat utility and as I suspected the issue is related to Vuze.

When I click properties on Vuze downloads, it shows 67 gb is used. The WinDirStat, however, shows 142 gb is used on the same directory! Uh oh.

Haven't yet tried undelete (why would I need undelete now?!) and cccleaner because now I am thinking the logical thing is to completely uninstall Vuze.

Does that sound like the next logical step to you (techies)?

Edited November 19, 2010 by Jingthing

[astral]

Haven't yet tried undelete (why would I need undelete now?!) and cccleaner

A problem with most computer systems is that they do not really Delete files,

the space is just marked as unused. Windows, for some unknown reason, does not see

the deleted file space as being usable. Protection for idiots, I guess.

The Undelete programme allows you to retrieve a deleted file, but a more importantly

it can clear the space for reuse. When you delete your torrents, the space does not

become re-usable. I have the same problem with uTorrent.

Undelete is fast and can make Gb's of space reappear like magic.

If you reinstall Vuze you will probably loose all the torrent files and partial downloaded data.

OK if you are happy with that?

CCleaner is useful as it deletes old temporary and log files, internet cache etc and can also free up

swathes of disk space.

I run Undelete everytime I have a major delete session in uTorrent

and CCleaner once a week.

PS If you want be really secure you can install an Erase programme that overwrites "deleted"

data on the disk, stopping anyone going snooping in the "free space" on your disk.

http://eraser.heidi.ie/

The problem is that it takes time to erase big files.

[Jingthing]

Interesting and thank you. I have never had a problem with deleting torrent files not freeing up space! That isn't the problem I had anyway exactly as far as I can tell. It had to do with some kind of strangeness when ADDING the torrent initially into Vuze. It could be a 700 meg torrent I am adding to begin to download, but some strangeness could happen wiping down 20 gigs of space (and never getting the torrent anyway as it was some kind of error). I suppose I should look into undelete before uninstalling Vuze, just in case it would help. I agree uninstalling Vuze would be a hit but not losing all that space permanently plus the risk of this happening more times is worth taking a hit, IF that works. Interestingly, since I ran chkdisk the problem hasn't happened again (though lots of space on C is still missing). A coincidence perhaps.

Edited November 20, 2010 by Jingthing

[BB1950]

Interesting and thank you. I have never had a problem with deleting torrent files not freeing up space! That isn't the problem I had anyway exactly as far as I can tell. It had to do with some kind of strangeness when ADDING the torrent initially into Vuze. It could be a 700 meg torrent I am adding to begin to download, but some strangeness could happen wiping down 20 gigs of space (and never getting the torrent anyway as it was some kind of error). I suppose I should look into undelete before uninstalling Vuze, just in case it would help. I agree uninstalling Vuze would be a hit but not losing all that space permanently plus the risk of this happening more times is worth taking a hit, IF that works. Interestingly, since I ran chkdisk the problem hasn't happened again (though lots of space on C is still missing). A coincidence perhaps.

Many times when you add torrents, the files are created as 'hidden files' until the download is completed. Hence if you abort the download, they are still occupying space for the full size of the files on the hard drive, which you can't see unless you enable 'show hidden files' in the folder options. Once you see the hidden files, you can then easily delete them thus freeing up space.

[steve187]

Thanks. I'll have a look. Another thing. When I look at the sizes of the big things on my C drive (all the folders directly under C) it adds up to MUCH LESS than the total space I am told I have. Perhaps that is normal for it to not up exactly? But way off?

Not trying to teach you to such eggs, but system restore will occupy some of the harddrive space, i just checked my 'c' drive and the properties box is showing 81.2gb of used space, but when i check all the files in the 'c' drive inc. hidden files/folders they only add up to 69.1gb, so that shows 12.1gb is missing , and on checking system restore it shows that it is allocated the 12.1gb

[Supernova]

I ran chkdisk. However it was taking so long that I left it running while I was sleeping so I didn't see any error messages,

Check Disk (chkdsk) - Read Event Viewer Log

[Jingthing]

Interesting and thank you. I have never had a problem with deleting torrent files not freeing up space! That isn't the problem I had anyway exactly as far as I can tell. It had to do with some kind of strangeness when ADDING the torrent initially into Vuze. It could be a 700 meg torrent I am adding to begin to download, but some strangeness could happen wiping down 20 gigs of space (and never getting the torrent anyway as it was some kind of error). I suppose I should look into undelete before uninstalling Vuze, just in case it would help. I agree uninstalling Vuze would be a hit but not losing all that space permanently plus the risk of this happening more times is worth taking a hit, IF that works. Interestingly, since I ran chkdisk the problem hasn't happened again (though lots of space on C is still missing). A coincidence perhaps.

Many times when you add torrents, the files are created as 'hidden files' until the download is completed. Hence if you abort the download, they are still occupying space for the full size of the files on the hard drive, which you can't see unless you enable 'show hidden files' in the folder options. Once you see the hidden files, you can then easily delete them thus freeing up space.

Yes, I understand that but the space used wouldn't be 10 gbs for a 1 gb torrent file. Again, this issue isn't about torrents somewhat downloaded, this about some kind of bad error (memory loss) caused at the event of ADDING the torrent, not downloading it. Thanks for the info about hidden files. I enabled viewing hidden files and don't see any in Vuze. Ugh!

Edited November 22, 2010 by Jingthing