Drive Full after Defrag

[MachineTheory]

The situation:
Win 7 32-bit.
2TB Hard Drive.
900GB full, 960GB free (48% used).
Wasn't very fragmented.
Ran TuneUp Utilities 2010 Thorough Disk Defrag.
Now only 127GB free. Windows Explorer and xplorer2 say so.
TuneUp Disk Space Explorer says total filesize = 900GB, but also says only 127GB free.
I have run chkdsk, checked for Restore Points, Shadow copies, Disk images, page file, hidden files... I can't figure out why the system thinks the space is used, but no files taking up that space.
It may or may not be related, that this OS install has a bad corruption in device and USB Driver handling and possibly ntkrnlpa.exe. Also, when accessing an external drive, folders show up, but no files. Plugged into a different pc, and the files are there. I will have to re-install win7 soon, but I need to make partition images as a safety net. And to do that, I need my storage+backup drive.
Why is the disk reporting full, when it isn't; and how do I fix it?
Thank you.

 

[Aspect404]

A few points:

I personally use WinDirStat to find out which files are eating up the most space... great free program.

Before running, I would configure explorer to show hidden and protected system files.

When you ran chckdsk, did you add the " x: /r/f" arguments? (x being target drive letter) It may require a reboot to run, but that will perform a more thorough operation and repair anything found.

Since you're having trouble with the Windows system itself, it may be wise to run an "sfc /scannow" as Admin to try and fix any blaring flaws with the kernel before performing the above.

Best of luck.

 

[MachineTheory]

-I believe I did try WinDirStat and 2 other programs. 2 or 3 of them reported the same as explorer. maybe 1 reported that space was used, but no actual files taking up that space.
-When I scan for pre-defrag, the drive map looks as though it's perfectly mirrored.

-Hidden and Protected are shown.

-I'm not sure if I ran chkdsk with the drive letter. I may have.

-I did run sfc /scannow.

------------------
Is there any way to download clean copies of these files; or get them from Win install disc?
ntkrnlpa.exe
usbhub.sys

TY.

 

[Cerberus2k7]

VSS is most likely taking it up. Start>run>cleanmgr>"Files from all users...">More Options>Clean Up under System Restore and Shadow Copies. Note that this will remove all but the most recent restore point. But generally will free up quite a bit of space. Especially since defrag tools utilize VSS. I'd also recommend checking the System Restore size limit, and running a disk cleanup 2 or 3 times. Because sometimes, it just wont clean up much of anything.

 

[AngelfireUk83]

could always try ccleaner I have for years and it is a very good free program

 

[orion456]

You can also run chkdsk /r to scan the disk to look for problems related to space that has not be freed.

ccleaner would be my first try.

 

[MachineTheory]

-chkdsk /r - most likely the command i used.

-already tried Ccleaner. many times. and other programs, too.

-That is a storage drive, and is not flagged for shadow copies or system restore.

-I did as Cerberus2k7 instructed. however, i still have the last 6 or 7 restore points (if you include the undo). probably the fact that drive G (the 2TB with the issue) is not my OS drive.
However, I may have made a copy and/or partial backup/image of my OS partition to that drive, before this happened. is it possible that the os copy could have spawned a vss shadow copy of it's own, and is not visible to the system because it is a copy of a drive that doesnt exactly exist? though, the defrag map looks like 900gb of data, then some empty space, then another 900gb of data.

 

[Cerberus2k7]

-chkdsk /r - most likely the command i used.

-already tried Ccleaner. many times. and other programs, too.

-That is a storage drive, and is not flagged for shadow copies or system restore.

-I did as Cerberus2k7 instructed. however, i still have the last 6 or 7 restore points (if you include the undo). probably the fact that drive G (the 2TB with the issue) is not my OS drive.
However, I may have made a copy and/or partial backup/image of my OS partition to that drive, before this happened. is it possible that the os copy could have spawned a vss shadow copy of it's own, and is not visible to the system because it is a copy of a drive that doesnt exactly exist? though, the defrag map looks like 900gb of data, then some empty space, then another 900gb of data.

It shouldn't. But it also depends on how it was copied. If you used robocopy at all on that drive I have seen it balloon the size of locked files when the /B(I think it is) flag is used. But treesize and other utilities would be able to see that.