Hi everybody I have an interesting problem with xp not reporting freed up disk space correctly on certain partitions. I have seen references on the web to the same problem but never any solution.
What happens is that I can delete files (via shift-delete not to the recycle bin). The file is gone but the free space remains the same. This will go on for some random amount of time before suddenly hey presto all the free space is suddenly reported to be there - and this "missing" space runs into gigabytes.
If I drop to a command prompt and delete the file that way the file goes yet the free space remains the same. However this is where it gets interesting because a chkdsk stiill reports the same number of files as before the one i deleted.
ie 300 files delete one dir reports 299 yet chkdsk reports 300 still (actually it reports more becaues of the hidden files but you get the point).
Neither Microsofts own or Norton disk doctor reports any errors.
Does anybody have any suggestions or ideas what might be happening?
My next step might be to write a small program to call the getdiskfree function from microsoft's API but I would expect to get the same result as explorer as this must be using the same call.
Thanks for any help

My guess would be Norton Protected Recycle Bin or something similar.

I actually turn off the Norton Bin.

I have always wondered, do the files still take hd space up on your hd until you actually permently delete them from your recycling bin? If so, you should empty you bin :P

Thanks for the replies. I had thought about norton's recycle bin and was under the impression I had disabled it. I had looked in the recycler on the partition from a command prompt and indeed there was nothing in it and clicking on it via windows explorer showed the norton unerase wizard but found no files.
However when I ran the unerase wizard off the start menu (probably for the first time ever in about 2 years!!) suddenly a large number of files were found.
Subsequently when clicking on the recycler the "deleted" files were there. Going into the settings for norton I found I had originally created exclusions for certain file types on some partitions and not others hence the apparent inconsistency.
When I turned off norton for the partition in question a nprotect (hidden) directory appeared in the recycler folder with the offending files (incidentally the files dont retain their name but seem to recieve a consecutive number with the original extension). Deleting the files in here reclaimed the free space.
My conclusion must be that the service that norton runs intercepts the dir command etc to this folder when it is turned on. This would make sense as you would need to get deep into the api then in order to see these files.
Anyway thanks for the suggestion you were indeed correct.

I really don't recommend installing these kinds of utilities unless you have a really good reason to.

Yea i've been having same problems... 3 partitions, and 2-3 gigabytes of them missing! Did all scans, temp folders, recycle bins etc, but the space is still missing. I dont have norton or things like that. Example - yesterday i deleted some game, that was 4,8 GB, and happy to see my new disk space, i was surprised that only 1-2 GB were freed...

turn off protected recyling bin in norton - it's redundant and unnecessary.