Unknown large $Recycle Bin entry on HDD

Teemsan · Sep 27, 2016

Hi,

I'm running Win 10 64 bit v 1607

I currently have 6 internal and a 1 external drives hooked up. (Rest of my specs under my icon to the right) One of my drives is a 3 TB WD Black (letter G) that shows 383 GB free in it's 2.72 TB capacity, when I view it in Windows Explorer.

I often use the program Folder Size to check drive space. When I look at that 3TB G drive in Folder Size it shows a 435 GB entry as $RECYCLE BIN. All of the other folders showing for that G drive in Folder Size are the correct name and size. See the pic below:

However when I right click the drive and go to Properties > Disk Cleanup, it only shows one 46.1 GB entry, and that's the Recycle Bin for that drive:

In Windows Explorer folder view I have checked "Show hidden files, folders, and drives" - all my other hidden folders show up. What would that 435 GB be that's showing in Folder Size, and how can I access it in Explorer to delete it?

Thanks

Hlsgsz · Sep 27, 2016

Use WinDirStat for a more reliable image of what's what.

Teemsan · Sep 27, 2016

Hlsgsz :

I ran WinDirStat and it does have a much more comprehensive tree.

I realize now that under the Win Explorer Folder view properties I had checked the Hide protected operating files and so that $RECYCLE BIN folder on each drive wasn't showing. I've temporarily unchecked that so I can now see it and access it in Windows Explorer. But it still doesn't make sense as to why windows is keeping files and folders that I choose to 'permanently delete', especially when it far exceeds the size of Recycle Bin that's been set for that drive.

Example: the G drive had been set to a ridiculously large 142 GB Recycle Bin. But that doesn't account for why the $RECYCLE BIN folder on that drive had 390 GB of files and folders that I had permanently deleted..

And even weirder ... the 5 TB drive was just installed today, brand new freshly initialized GPT and formatted NTFS. I only copied to the disk today - about 2.5TB - yet it already shows a $RECYCLE BIN folder that is 30GB full, and the contents are deleted files and folders from the Recycle Bin of the source disk I was copying from.

Makes no sense.

I have 1 to 1 backup of all my drives in an external JBOD box, backed up by a sync program for all the folders. Those backups contained only the backed up content & none of those extra $RECYCLE BIN files, & the backed up folder sizes all match correctly with my internal folder sizes 1 to 1. So I just deleted the contents of each drives $RECYCLE BIN - restoring ~ 750 GB space

I 'm not sure why Win 10 is keeping copies of these permanent deletes on the disk? Is there a way to prevent it from doing that? I thought that it would do exactly as it said and just permanently delete those items when I answered yes to that, and confine the regular Recycle Bin to the size that it's set at in the Win 10 Recycle Bin properties for each drive.

Hlsgsz · Sep 28, 2016

Teemsan :

Hlsgsz :

I ran WinDirStat and it does have a much more comprehensive tree.

I realize now that under the Win Explorer Folder view properties I had checked the Hide protected operating files and so that $RECYCLE BIN folder on each drive wasn't showing. I've temporarily unchecked that so I can now see it and access it in Windows Explorer. But it still doesn't make sense as to why windows is keeping files and folders that I choose to 'permanently delete', especially when it far exceeds the size of Recycle Bin that's been set for that drive.

Example: the G drive had been set to a ridiculously large 142 GB Recycle Bin. But that doesn't account for why the $RECYCLE BIN folder on that drive had 390 GB of files and folders that I had permanently deleted..

And even weirder ... the 5 TB drive was just installed today, brand new freshly initialized GPT and formatted NTFS. I only copied to the disk today - about 2.5TB - yet it already shows a $RECYCLE BIN folder that is 30GB full, and the contents are deleted files and folders from the Recycle Bin of the source disk I was copying from.

Makes no sense.

I have 1 to 1 backup of all my drives in an external JBOD box, backed up by a sync program for all the folders. Those backups contained only the backed up content & none of those extra $RECYCLE BIN files, & the backed up folder sizes all match correctly with my internal folder sizes 1 to 1. So I just deleted the contents of each drives $RECYCLE BIN - restoring ~ 750 GB space

I 'm not sure why Win 10 is keeping copies of these permanent deletes on the disk? Is there a way to prevent it from doing that? I thought that it would do exactly as it said and just permanently delete those items when I answered yes to that, and confine the regular Recycle Bin to the size that it's set at in the Win 10 Recycle Bin properties for each drive.

That is strange indeed. The bin may have glitched. For forther reference, run this command replacing the drive letter accordingly in an admin comman prompt to reset a faulty recycle bin:

Code:

rd /s /q C:\$Recycle.bin

Teemsan · Sep 28, 2016

Thanks Hlsgsz,
I ran the command on each drive. I had manually set the Recycle Bin size on the storage drives to 60 GB yesterday, which is still a ton, and after running the command everything's held. Hopefully that's now fixed the problem.
Thanks for your help

Hlsgsz · Sep 28, 2016

You're welcome!

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