OK. Clearly you have some disk corruption and will need to run chkdsk /r [I do /r so it also checks the media] "512 bytes in each allocation unit." Should be 4096 bytes per allocation unit. This is really BAD. How did you set this drive up? Who recommended making the allocation size the same for sector size on a disk that large??? For a disk that large you should have gone 16-32k per allocation unit though you lose some benefits like compression [which I never use]. What is your average file size? http://www.ntfs.com/ntfs_optimizati... It does not appear you are missing 160gig. Appears from chkdsk you are missing no space at all. With allocation units this small you have to have a massive Master File Table to track them all. Then you have issues like if the drive is caching disk writes to speed up access which in turn can corrupt the master file table. For example any drive that contains a database is always to have write caching disabled because of this corruption issue. Example of Oxymoron: Person who is pro life and anti sex education. Education is key to prevention. Prevent conception you prevent abortion. Abstinence training clearly isn't working.

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This server was setup in 4/2006 I started in 1/2007, I have no clue who set it up. Check out these images to see what I am talking about when I say I am missing drive space... http://filedb.experts-exchange.com/... http://filedb.experts-exchange.com/... Here is a defrag report that may help: Volume (C:) Volume size = 559 GB Cluster size = 512 bytes Used space = 503 GB Free space = 55.39 GB Percent free space = 9 % Volume Fragmentation Total fragmentation = 15 % File fragmentation = 30 % Free space fragmentation = 0 % File fragmentation Total files = 2,592,908 Average file size = 210 KB Total fragmented files = 656,567 Total excess fragments = 2,392,923 Average fragments per file = 1.92 Pagefile fragmentation Pagefile size = 4.00 GB Total fragments = 1 Folder fragmentation Total folders = 63,145 Fragmented folders = 2,730 Excess folder fragments = 104,219 Master File Table (MFT) fragmentation Total MFT size = 2.63 GB MFT record count = 2,661,950 Percent MFT in use = 96 % Total MFT fragments = 5

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"Master File Table (MFT) fragmentation Total MFT size = 2.63 GB MFT record count = 2,661,950 Percent MFT in use = 96 % Total MFT fragments = 5" Oh my goodness! Accessing this drive setup must be really slow! My Computer and chkdsk say the same thing. Even though in the first picture you have everything selected the properties are only of documents and settings. You are not missing disk space. I wish for your sake that was all you had to deal with. I would highly recommend backing everything up, wipe the disk with a new install, and restore from backup. Also consider partitioning for a number of good reasons. You can't win with this setup. You will continue with severe fragmentation and your master file table will be corrupted. The person who set this up didn't know about how hard drives/file systems work. This person thought "oh no disk waste if I user 512k allocation units." The correct way of thinking about this is to balance between being too small [512k] or being too large. Too small means a HUGE MFT, which in your case is 2.6gig and fragmented into 5 pieces [bad] vs too large when you waste disk space. MS loves 4k allocation units and for the OS drive that is recommended. An example of disk space wastage [called slack] is where you have a 32k cluster [allocation unit in Microsoft speak] but your average file size is 8K. You waste 24k of cluster space for each 8k file stored. You need to understand how bad this is. Your MFT is 96% used. Soon you won't be able to store files even if you have disk space!!!! The other problem with small allocation units is fragmentation of files. If you have 100 32K units vs 800 4K units, which do you think will get fragmented more? The 800 pieces will. In your case you have 3200 pieces at 512kb Wish I had good news for you. Example of Oxymoron: Person who is pro life and anti sex education. Education is key to prevention. Prevent conception you prevent abortion. Abstinence training clearly isn't working.

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Point taken about the server, I will bring this up to my manager. As for the drive space. "you have everything selected the properties are only of documents and settings". Ok then, what is taking up the other 160GB? Thanks for your help!

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How would someone setup the cluster size wrong? When your installing Win2K3 you don't have an option to choose cluster size. All you can choose is format or not. Correct? Keep in mind there is only one partition.

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You can use server based software to change cluster size. If you review the link I gave you, you will see the larger the drive the larger the cluster size. Never smaller. 'tis the season to be of good cheer. Wishing one and all happy times with family and friends.

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I checked the size of the full backup we take with backup exec. We don't select all folders, but most. The size of the backup is 470GB and over 2,000,000 files. So Backup exec sees the files and recognizes the used space. So why can't I find the 160GB worth of files? They could have used an HP smart-start CD to change the default cluster size?

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Again you are not missing 160gig of files. Your one picture, that you base this on, clearly shows you have 300+gig in documents and settings. You did not select the entire drive. You misread this screen. Yet chkdsk and my computer both show the file usage correctly as does the defrag report [there is always a little fluxuation since the server is being used and all the reports were not done at the exact same time]. Again you are not missing any files or disk space. according to chkdsk you have 2,591,241 files If you are only backing up 2,000,000 you will want to ask yourself what isn't being backed up. 'tis the season to be of good cheer. Wishing one and all happy times with family and friends.

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"You did not select the entire drive." The statement above my friend is where we are having a communication disconnect. If I do a ctrl-a then right-click properties on the contents of the C:\ drive, I do not see 2.5 million files and 500GB worth of used space. Why? PS. I am currently restoring the backup to another server with permissions stripped in hopes to find ALL the files.

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585914631 KB total disk space. 523672074 KB in 2,591,241 files. from your 4th post Volume (C:) Volume size = 559 GB Used space = 503 GB Free space = 55.39 GB Total files = 2,592,908 from your 8th post Not sure why you are having such a hard time seeing this. Look at your 8th post and your first link. See where is says Documents and Settings? See where it says 345gig? YOU ARE ONLY SEEING 345GIG IN DOCUMENTS AND SETTINGS. Now look at post 4 and 8 which list: 2,591,241 files and 2,592,908 files Two different views but the same information. Now look at post 8 and your second link 558gig total with 56.1gig free From post 4 58,328,692 KB available on disk and post 8 Free space = 55.39 GB Your free space ranges from 55gig to 58gig which is totally expected if a server experiencing constant writes and deletes. You are on a wild goose chase because you misinterpreted a single screen as you ignore all the others. Your server is a fast car on a short pier. You need to be focusing on its rebuild not trying to address a nonexistant problem. Followup: "If I do a ctrl-a then right-click properties on the contents of the C:\ drive, I do not see 2.5 million files and 500GB worth of used space. Why? Control-a only highlights all folders and files. It does not tally the contents of those folders. Again review the picture in your first link and note the "properties" are ONLY of documents and settings. 'tis the season to be of good cheer. Wishing one and all happy times with family and friends.

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Wanderer, you are wrong. If you look at the picture it says, Documents and Settings ... Properties. The ... means ALL the folders selected, and yes it does tally ALL the files in the folder. It may not get the number of files correct, but it should get the memory size or pretty darn close. I bet if this guy ran a 3rd party program (like treesize) to count the size of the memory use, he'll be missing 160 gigs too. I have seen this problem before, and I have no clue what causes it. From my research, it seems nobody knows what causes it.

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This has been resolved. It seems my manager stores a 160GB email archive and broke inheritance and permissions on it. That is why I see the space gone but any tool couldn't tell me what it was because I didn't have permissions. How I found out... I did a restore of the data to a different location from a backup tape and stripped permissions using backup exec. Then I used windirstat to find out and compare my results to the one on the server. Thanks for all your help people.

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