Windows XP forum: Where are all these folders?!!

That's just it... I can't find all these folders or about 208 GB of used space on the system.
Total space on the C: drive is 355 GB.
Here is a list of the biggest folders off the root drive and the number of folders:
Documents and settings 43.9 GB 4541 folders
Program files 10.7 GB 6069 folders
Windows 13.8 GB 5151 folders
Drivers 3.2 GB 837 folders
Pagefile and hiberfil.sys 3.1 GB each

All of the other folders off the root directory have a small number of files/folders.
So... what's taking up all the space? This must be related to this huge number of folders I can't seem to find.

One thing that's kind of odd...
when I check the properties of the Documents and settings folder, it stops with the number listed above, but keeps flickering... like it's still checking the status of the folders. I just assumed it was continuing to scan the folder because I'm constantly accessing files. But now I'm wondering...

I'd start drilling donw in the Documents and Settings folder.

Other tools that you can use:
- Treesize (free download from Jam sofware)
- Chkdsk from the command prompt
- Attrib and dir from the command prompt

So many folders and so many GB, you should be able to find those.

Kees

When I first noticed this problem, I ran a defrag and a chkdsk. Defrag finished fine.
Chkdsk, however, got part way through and then seemed to freeze. It gave me a message that included "Make sure the allowed user address space is set to a maximum."
I have been unable to find where or how to do this. It was from researching this that I found HD Tune. HD Tune is what showed the 500,000 folders. Once it exceeds that number of folders, the scan basically stops because the system runs out of handles for the folders.

Drilling down in Documents and Settings seems the way to go. It would be interesting to see whyat these folders are and what program made them.

You're the only one who has access to that machine. So you're the only one who can do it.

Kees

after letting that folder blink for about 20 minutes, the folder count suddenly jumped to over 400,000.
an hour later I managed to drill down to a Sugarsync folder called tmp_cloud_area.
as of this writing, it is at 1,500,000 folders and counting. even more interesting, they are all empty so far.
I intend to contact Sugarsync tech support to find out WTF is going on with their app.
I'll update you when I get a response.

I'd stop that program until they solve it.

Kees

I finally stopped Properties from looking and just started to delete the folder. At that time there were over 10,000,000 folders and 84 GB in files... and climbing!
I'm wondering if it will take as long to delete the folders as it took Properties to find them...

A delete is an update to the FAT and to the directory. Counting is just taking a quick look.

Please tell the results.

Kees

right.
48 hrs and counting...

You wrote you intended to contact them.

It's a rather spectacular failure. But it shows how sturdy the Windows file system is. I don't think Microsoft ever tested or even thought about creating a million subfolders in a folder and deleting them. You proved the first worked, and there's no outright failure yet for the second.

Kees

they have a way to send log and audit files. I started to do that, but after 12 hrs I stopped because it was slowing down the deletion.
i'll try it when it's done.

After deleting for 7 days straight, it finally stopped with a File in Use error.
So now I am in the process of deleting the program. This has the effect of doing the same thing, as it must delete all the folders it created.
Started this an hour ago.
Now we get to see how many more days/weeks it will take to remove them all.