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I used diskeeper for defragmenting my C drive on vista. Initially I had 2.6 GB free space, after defragmentation, it is just 480 MB. What happened? Please help to recover the space. Defragmentation is not supposed to decrease the storage space!!!

Edit 1:

enter image description here

Obtained by Scanner tool as suggested by ~harrymc in his answer

enter image description here

Edit 2:

I do not have much idea of above diagram. But I can infer one thing. From the above diagram, it looks like there is a problem. For e.g., in the green portion(representing folder) on the right at first level, there is a small portion on top right hand side which does not lead to any actual file. So the portion below it must not have been green. It should be free. Am I correct in my interpretation ?

Edit 3:

I ran chkdsk /f. It ran at restart. It removed some index entries. It gave message like this:

removed $0 of file 25

repeated many times. But the problem is still there. Please help.

Edit 4:

Mysteriuosly, just 2 minutes ago it has started showing me free space as 2.3 GB. I swear, I did not delete any thing Just 4 minutes ago, it was showing me 290 MB. I dont understand, how suddenly that space got freed. What is happening? Could anyone explain? I got this after running scanner now.

enter image description here

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1  
it didn't "increase the storage space", now did it? :) – Molly7244 Dec 8 '09 at 13:30
Whatever, I have lost so much free space. Pls help. – pineapple Dec 8 '09 at 13:32
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What metrics are you using to count the free space on your machine? – Randolph West Dec 8 '09 at 13:32
The space shown by windows explorer under the icons of c drive. – pineapple Dec 8 '09 at 13:35
About Edit 4: am I reading this right, you got your free space back? In that case I'd guess chkdsk did the trick. Remember, the free space display is not always immediately updated. You might have looked at old results after chkdsk. – Sam Dec 28 '09 at 11:24
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5 Answers

up vote 2 down vote accepted

As a side note: It's always advisable to do chkdsk before defragmenting.

You'll need to find out where the space has gone.
Things to try:

  1. Right-click the C drive in Explorer and choose Properties. Verify that the total used+unused space still corresponds to the disk size.
  2. If the total disk space is correct, but the used part is enormous, find out where the space has gone to. Using a visual tool such as Scanner, you can find that out easily.
  3. EDIT: Run CCleaner to remove unused files from your system.
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Ok i m doing that. But it will take some time. – pineapple Dec 8 '09 at 13:38
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The point is, it wasn't Diskeeper. – Randolph West Dec 8 '09 at 13:39
Then what else? This thing happened only after running diskeeper – pineapple Dec 8 '09 at 13:40
What shouuld I post? It shows me the diagram. hovering over shows info about differenet files. Should I post just the diagram? – pineapple Dec 8 '09 at 14:29
I have posted the results. How should I understand from this diagram? I did not understand. How should I check? – pineapple Dec 8 '09 at 14:49
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up vote 1 down vote

You might have had sparse files on the volume, and DiskKeeper made the sparse sektors allocate real space? Not sure if DiskKeeper does this, but it would explain the loss in free space.

Anyway, run a chkdsk /f, use a tool like sequioa view to find large files on your harddisk.

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How can I undo it? I have posted the diagram for large files in my question as suggested by ~harrymc in his answer using Scanner tool – pineapple Dec 8 '09 at 14:35
Ya I ran chkdsk/f. It removed some index entries. But the space is still not recovered. After finding large files what should I do? – pineapple Dec 8 '09 at 15:09
Sorry, I don't know scanner and got no idea how to use its output. You should use Scanner/Sequioa to identify large files on your system, then check if there are obsolete files which can be deleted. And I don't know of any way to undo sparse file allocation. Always try not to allocate them in the first place (so, if really diskkeeper did allocate them, never again use it). – Sam Dec 28 '09 at 11:22
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up vote 1 down vote

2.6 GB free space after installation is not a value Windows will be happy with for long. If you can, you should reinstall on a bigger partition. The unavoidable patches will fill that space up in no time, and Windows will be in trouble.

Perhaps the Swap file is set to "automatic", and during the defragmentation Windows had to allocate some virtual memory.

Check your event logs for disk errors.

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One way to free up some space, not related to this is change your Recycle Bin size. Right click and go to properties and adjust the slider bars there. Who needs s 4gb recycle bin?! =]

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My recycle bin currently takes up less than 1 MB. The problem is not this. The problem is space actually being utilised. – pineapple Dec 9 '09 at 3:59
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up vote 0 down vote

Diskeeper will not use up 2.2GB of space by performing a defragmentation (or ever).

I would suggest that your Windows System Restore added a restore point during Diskeeper's installation.

EDIT: It appears you had allocation errors, based on your chkdisk results. Run it again until the errors go away.

Do a regular chkdsk. File systems need to be maintained, and if you get any bad sectors, you'll need to find a new drive.

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No the free space 2.6 GB space was after installation – pineapple Dec 8 '09 at 13:36
Do what harrymc suggested then, and check for large files on your machine. – Randolph West Dec 8 '09 at 13:37
I did not understand. How should I check? – pineapple Dec 8 '09 at 14:48
Use Windows search... – Breakthrough Dec 8 '09 at 14:59
Please tell me what exactly should I do? with Search? – pineapple Dec 8 '09 at 15:08
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