Another Wipe Free Space Mess-Up

[ThunderBird]

Greetings -

 

First off, CCleaner is a great tool.

 

I believe I have a case of the common "free space suddenly used up" sickness because I didn't let CCleaner finish...

Yes, it was totally my fault, I just need help. I made a stupid mistake. Here is the story....

 

I started CCleaner. For *some reason*, I don't know why, I selected to Wipe Free Space. I am not selling the drive, nor do I have anything to hide. Something possessed me to Wipe Free Space It was also set on Gutmann 35 Pass, so from my understanding, it wreaked havoc on my hard drive's life? After about an hour, CCleaner was still at 15%, emptying the recycle bin. I AM NOT an impatient person, but I honestly thought it was hung up/frozen. I decided to close CCleaner, and then I got the warning message from Windows, "Only 60.0 KB left on your Hard drive".

 

At first I was really confused - 200 GB disappearing in under an hour! I did a Chkdsk, defrag, booted into my Ubuntu Partition (to check if Windows was displaying wrong information!) to no avail. I went over anything I did out-of-the-ordinary that day. Selecting "Wipe Free Space" was the only thing that came up. After some Googling and skimming through these forums, I see that it is a common problem. While I am not 105% sure that canceling the Wipe Free Space is the source of the problem, that seems to be the only plausible culprit.

 

But, I can't seem to find the "ZZZZZZZ" folders created by CCleaner. There is no new, odly named directory under C:, and I can't find anything through search. Please help? I have an Ubuntu Linux 11.04 partition, and some Ubuntu and PartedMagic LiveCDs at my disposal. I need to fix this problem!

 

Thanks so much,

 

ThunderBird

--------------------------------------------

 

500 GB HDD (more like 480 GB....)

 

421 GB Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit

 

~200 GB free before I ran CCleaner

~1 GB free after I canceled CCleaner

 

60 GB Ubuntu 11.04 (32 bit...I think? I'll check later, if needed)

 

Other, small recovery, utility partition(s), etc.

 

If you need to know more detailed information, please let me know.

[kroozer]

~1 GB free after I canceled CCleaner

Since you have 1 GB free space you have room to install the 1.3 MB WinDirStat.

 

It will find and display the massive file.

[ThunderBird]

Since you have 1 GB free space you have room to install the 1.3 MB WinDirStat.

 

It will find and display the massive file.

 

Thank you, sir/ma'am. I'll try that and I'll get back to you.

[Winapp2.ini]

Please let us know if CCleaner dumped its files elsewhere

[ThunderBird]

Please let us know if CCleaner dumped its files elsewhere

I will do so, however, part of me is starting to think it was not WFS...

 

Well I noticed a 250 GB File in the Recycle bin - an old .vmdk.

 

I am running Empty Recycle bin right now. After about an hour I've freed up 14 GB. And CCleaner is still clocking at 0% done - so this may fix it? Maybe it wasn't WFS, just a recycling bin error caused by me canceling...? (suddenly contents becomes SUPER bloated?)

In WinDirStat, I see no large "zzz" files, or anything that would have been made by a WFS.... just massive files in the Recycling bin....

I can take a screenshot of WinDirStat if needed?

 

Thanks so much for the help.

I don't blame CCleaner - its still a great tool. Just my mistake. I have 100% confidence this is fixable.

[kroozer]

I hope you learned to not use 35-pass again.

 

It takes hours to overwrite 200 GB free space with just a single pass, so I don't know if the wiper would actually attempt 35 passes, and I'm not about to experiment. We (incl. Gutmann) consider 35 passes a waste.

 

I use only single pass, and it does the job efficiently.

[hazelnut]

If you have recycle bin errors after this, or find it is not properly emptying those files use this fix

 

 

http://www.winhelponline.com/blog/fix-corrupted-recycle-bin-windows-7-vista/

[Alan_B]

My preference above WinDirStat is TreeSize Free

They have similar capabilities when tracking down large disk space wasters.

TreeSize can see the item "C:\System Volume Information"

but says " ! 0.0 MB System Volume Information [Access is denied] "

 

I suspect WinDirStat is subject to the same limitations of TreeSize.

 

I suspect that most search tools cannot see hidden or system files unless you uncheck the various display options,

and they cannot penetrate Access List restrictions.

 

Try the individual tool named "Everything" from VoidTools

http://www.voidtools.com/

This is not subject to any restrictions in NTFS partitions because it uses the MFT,

which is "infinitely" faster than a Windows trawl through directories that are subject to access restrictions.

The only difficulty is that FAT32 has no MFT so it does not even try to go there.

 

When I search for "chkdsk" it shows me 29 objects including items within C:\System Volume Information,

even though I have not seized ownership of that folder for myself,

and Windows Explorer tells me "Access is Denied"

Surprisingly if I click on the first Chkdsk item it launches Windows explorer at

C:\System Volume Information\Chkdsk

and I can see the results of a boot time chkdsk operation on 18/07/2011 when I double click on

C:\System Volume Information\Chkdsk\Chkdsk20110718210540.log

 

Everything is my "Go To Tool"

[kroozer]

My preference above WinDirStat is TreeSize Free

They have similar capabilities when tracking down large disk space wasters.

TreeSize can see the item "C:\System Volume Information"

but says " ! 0.0 MB System Volume Information [Access is denied] "

I suspect WinDirStat is subject to the same limitations of TreeSize.

I have both WinDirStat and TreeSizeFree installed. I linked to the former because it is smaller (1.30 vs. 2.92 MB)

 

This WinDirStat message appeared when attempting to delete Sys Vol Info.

 

I didn't proceed further to test it. The correct size of 8.21 GB is shown in the results.

 

Yes, Everything is excellent.

[login123]

Kroozer, I went on and tried to delete the system volume information folder using windirstat.

WXP home here, not W 7.

 

Got an access denied message, won't delete it.

Edit: Same for treesize free, locked.

With the acl locked, sys vol info shows 0 size, 0 files, etc.

 

 

Is there not some built in way to delete system restore points from win 7?

 

With the acl unlocked it shows 6.07 gb size. The blue stuff with the white border.

 

[ThunderBird]

I hope you learned to not use 35-pass again.

 

It takes hours to overwrite 200 GB free space with just a single pass, so I don't know if the wiper would actually attempt 35 passes, and I'm not about to experiment. We (incl. Gutmann) consider 35 passes a waste.

 

I use only single pass, and it does the job efficiently.

 

I definitely learned that.

 

If you have recycle bin errors after this, or find it is not properly emptying those files use this fix

 

 

http://www.winhelponline.com/blog/fix-corrupted-recycle-bin-windows-7-vista/

 

Thanks, I'll let you know.

 

I'll be right back - I am going to take some screen shots.

 

~10 GB free.

[kroozer]

Is there not some built in way to delete system restore points from win 7?

I guess the same method as in my Vista.

 

Right click Computer ➣ Properties ➣ System Protection. Untick ☐Partition_1 [C] System. This will delete System Restore Files and disable System Restore.

You'll need to retick to get it to work again.

[ThunderBird]

I'm back.

 

1) Thanks for the help.

2) Uh...they are a bit big - I didn't resize when I uploaded to ImageShack...Sorry.

3) No, I don't have 4 Blu-Ray Drives and 1 DVD Drive. I have a laptop with 1 DVD drive, but DAEMON Tools Lite is great

4) I blacked out two file folders in WinDirStat - private folders (but not pr0n, for you dirty minded people Lol JK )

 

Here is what I had last night after a reboot...

 

http://img38.imageshack.us/img38/5533/wtfharddrive.png

 

Here is my NEW CCleaner settings....

 

http://img163.imageshack.us/img163/7433/mynewccleanersettings.png

 

Here is my Computer now...

 

http://img820.imageshack.us/img820/6014/mycomputere.png

 

Here is WinDirStat. I still need to look through it.

 

http://img851.imageshack.us/img851/2856/windirstatscreen.png

 

Thanks.

[ThunderBird]

I *just* updated to CCleaner 3.09....

Previously on 3.07.1457 (64 bit)

 

I doubt that will help with anything. But I am posting version number anyways.

[hazelnut]

It will as you say take quite some time to empty the recycle bin of that large (VMware?) file.

 

Is it still going down, and is your HD space going up?

[ThunderBird]

I deleted the .vmdk in WinDirStat.

 

Seems too good to be true, but now I have 260 GB free (I cleared out some other stuff too).

 

Uh....yay? I don't know...suddenly its fine.

 

Thanks for all the help. I *think* the problem is fixed now. (still confused on how it happened!?!?) I don't think Wipe Free Space was the cause.

If anything happens, I'll be back.

 

 

Thanks!

 

P.S. -

 

If there are any CCleaner developers here in this thread, I have a suggestion.

In the next release of CCleaner, add a warning message to the "This may take a while" dialogue when "Wipe Free Space" is selected. The message would warn the user to NOT cancel the wipe free space when it is running, as to prevent problems.

 

Thanks.

 

 

 

[Alan_B]

I suggest a more comprehensive warning, such as

 

THIS MAY END BADLY, ESPECIALLY IF :-

OPERATION IS ABORTED (IT MUST COMPLETE ONCE IT STARTS)

OR YOU LACK EXPERT UNDERSTANDING OF ITS CONSEQUENCES.

[kroozer]

The message would warn the user to NOT cancel the wipe free space when it is running, as to prevent problems.

How's this? . . .

[ThunderBird]

I suggest a more comprehensive warning, such as

 

 

....Hey....does "Lack Expert understanding" mean me?

How's this? . . .

 

That is great.

[hazelnut]

Glad you are all back up and running now Thunderbird.

 

I do agree with the other members a warning should be issued BEFORE free space is wiped that bad things can happen if you abort before the end of the wipe