Windows 7 Reporting Incorrect Free Drive Space

[limelites]

I have a relatively new system (a few months old) with Windows 7 OS. The main drive c: is 1.36TB capacity but it was reporting only 5MB free!! This could not be right but I deleted some backup files and it's now reporting only 257GB free. This cannot possibly be right as I only have Windows, MS Office and a few minor programmes installed.

I have six folders in my root c: and this is the space consumption reported by right click properties on each folder:

My Websites: 1.52GB
Programme Files: 2.39GB
Pogramme Files (x86): 5.25GB
Programme Data: 1.53GB
Users: 20GB
Windows: 22.1GB

The total only adds up to a little over 51GB. I have no idea why windows thinks that there's only 257GB left from a 1.36TB drive that contains only 51GB of data.

I've ran a full CHKDSK from a reboot which took several hours and did not find any errors. Computer restarted overnight and still reports the wrong space.

I have ran a disk cleanup and emptied recycle bin, so it's not that.

I have defragged the drive, even though it's scheduled to do so weekly and was reporting 0% fragmented. So it's not that.

I've checked that system restore is switched off, so it's not that. There are no restore points so no space consumption there.

I have checked the disk management and there aren't any empty partitions, so it's not that:



Can anyone shed any light on this?

[Namchan]

Well probably this problem occurs when you have enabled System Protection on this partition. Many times system restore use to eat up space that cannot be seen. So what you can do is Turn off System protection and you will get the space back. For more info, see these articles:
Windows report wrong free space on hard drive in windows 7
Drive free space is missing in Windows 7
Windows 7 showing Incorrect disk space

[limelites]

No, system protection is switched off. It's not that.

[TABLITA]

Hello as per my knowledge I think you have to check with the volume shadow copy service. Actually it is generating copies of files which occupy some space in your system. Search about this on Google you will get the guide to remove this kind of files. I hope this will help you.

[limelites]

No, system protection is turned off on my machine so it's not that.

[newtech]

Download and install a utility called SpaceSniffer which performs a quick scan of files and shows you your data in a series of nested boxes, each box being a folder or file. You can zoom in on any folder to see its deeper composition. SpaceSniffer is a good, free, disk usage visualization tool. It can be very helpful for system administrators to get a quick overview of the contents of network drives and pinpoint unusual file or space allocations.

[limelites]

You're right, that is a really useful utility! It found an old backup folder on my HDD that Windows (right click properties) was reporting as empty (0bytes). SpaceSniffer analysed the drive and reported that this folder was in fact 859GB!!! I've been trying to delete it ever since.

There's a long path issue and Windows can't delete it. I've even tried rebooting in safe mode with command prompt using DOS commands RMDIR /s backups.... still reports path too long. I'm trying to delete it with 'unlocker' but it's taking forever...... Don't suppose you know of a good little utility to get rid of folders with super long paths?

[EINSTEIN_007]

You can use the remove directory command with subdirectory switch that will delete the long path file/folder issue on your windows 7 by typing the below command in the cmd:
rd /s nameOfDirectory

[limelites]

I managed to delete the directory with the "unlocker" tool. Brilliant! The drive's now reading as it should, 1.16TB free of 1.36TB. Thank you all!!