Is 2 megs and 408 hidden files on a system drive excessive?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Nick B.
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Nick B.

I recently suffered a BSOD (due to testing some beta software) and
when the file system was checked on powering up, the following was
printed out (as taken from the event log on my Win2k box):

Checking file system on C:
The type of the file system is FAT32.

A disk check has been scheduled.
Windows will now check the disk.
Volume Serial Number is 7C84-F6F0
Windows is verifying free space...
Free space verification is complete.
Windows has checked the file system and found no problem.
40016128 KB total disk space.
2212384 KB in 408 hidden files.
100576 KB in 3107 folders.
17760608 KB in 45891 files.
576 KB in bad sectors.
19941952 KB are available.

32768 bytes in each allocation unit.
1250504 total allocation units on disk.
623186 allocation units available on disk.

Just wondering whether that sounds like an excessive number of
hidden files?

Is there a utility for finding and displaying all of the hidden
files so I can see what they are? (I'm a UNIX guy and am only
somewhat familiar with Windows boxen, so would appreciate help
from you Windows gurus).

Nick
--
 
Hi, Nick.
2212384 KB in 408 hidden files.
Click to expand...

2,212,384 KB = over 2 GigaBytes, not 2 MegaBytes. You're seeing 2 million
KiloBytes, not 2 million Bytes.

On my WinXP Pro system, my \Windows folder has 153 hidden files, totaling
6,722,630 bytes, according to Dir /s /a:h. In a "DOS" window, type Dir /?
to see a mini-Help file showing all the switches and parameters available
with the Dir command. As you can see, the /s switch includes all
subdirectories and the /a:h command shows all files with the Hidden
attribute.

Yes, 2 GB in 408 hidden files sounds excessive to me if you are looking only
in %SystemRoot%, which would default to \WinNT in Win2K.

Of course, if you are including ALL of C:, then you might have many hidden
files in other folders.

RC
 
Hi R.C.,

Thanks for the reply!

R. C. White said:
Hi, Nick.



2,212,384 KB = over 2 GigaBytes, not 2 MegaBytes. You're seeing 2
million KiloBytes, not 2 million Bytes.
Click to expand...

Oops! My mistake - by 3 orders of magnitude!
On my WinXP Pro system, my \Windows folder has 153 hidden files,
totaling 6,722,630 bytes, according to Dir /s /a:h. In a "DOS" window,
type Dir /? to see a mini-Help file showing all the switches and
parameters available with the Dir command. As you can see, the /s
switch includes all subdirectories and the /a:h command shows all files
with the Hidden attribute.

Yes, 2 GB in 408 hidden files sounds excessive to me if you are looking
only in %SystemRoot%, which would default to \WinNT in Win2K.

Of course, if you are including ALL of C:, then you might have many
hidden files in other folders.
Click to expand...

With your help, I did a little detective work. I'd appreciate your
comments on what I found:

First I found out how many hidden files were on my C: drive using
dir /s /a:h c:

Total Files Listed:
276 File(s) 2,254,712,942 bytes
124 Dir(s) 20,469,547,008 bytes free

This differs considerably in the number of files reported by what
I'm assuming was the chkdsk program (taken from Win2k's Event
Viewer):

A disk check has been scheduled.
Windows will now check the disk.
Volume Serial Number is 7C84-F6F0
Windows is verifying free space...
Free space verification is complete.
Windows has checked the file system and found no problem.
40016128 KB total disk space.
2212384 KB in 408 hidden files.
100576 KB in 3107 folders.
17760608 KB in 45891 files.
576 KB in bad sectors.
19941952 KB are available.

32768 bytes in each allocation unit.
1250504 total allocation units on disk.
623186 allocation units available on disk.

While the total amount of space used by hidden files isn't
far off from what the 'dir /s /a:h c:' command shows, the number
of files differs by quite a lot. I wonder what the explanation
is for this discrepancy?

As far as why hidden files are taking up so much space, I found
the following by running 'dir /a:h' from the c:\ location:

C:\>dir /a:h
Volume in drive C has no label.
Volume Serial Number is 7C84-F6F0

Directory of C:\

10/19/2001 09:08a 0 IO.SYS
10/19/2001 09:08a 0 MSDOS.SYS
04/28/2005 09:01a 2,145,386,496 PAGEFILE.SYS
06/19/2003 03:05p 150,528 arcldr.exe
10/19/2001 09:23a <DIR> Recycled
06/19/2003 03:05p 163,840 arcsetup.exe
09/17/2004 04:48p 214,432 ntldr
09/17/2004 04:48p 34,724 NTDETECT.COM
09/17/2004 12:38p 192 boot.ini
09/17/2004 12:59p 0 CONFIG.SYS
09/17/2004 12:59p 0 AUTOEXEC.BAT
05/22/2004 03:40p <DIR> Config.Msi
10 File(s) 2,145,950,212 bytes
2 Dir(s) 20,469,547,008 bytes free

From this it looks like the PAGEFILE.SYS file takes up most of what
is listed as hidden file space. This, as I understand it,
is what is called a "swap file" in UNIX - used to swap memory
to disk, in the event that memory usage exceeds actual available
RAM.

So, the only mystery that remains is why there is such a discrepancy
between what chkdsk shows and what 'dir /s /a:h' shows.

Nick
--
 
Hi, Nick.

I can help with some of your questions, but I hope some guru will jump in
for the rest of them. I'm no chkdsk expert because I seldom need to use it.
;<) But, chkdsk on my WinXP boot volume does not even show a line for
"hidden files". I've not looked in the Event Viewer.
From this it looks like the PAGEFILE.SYS file takes up most of what
is listed as hidden file space. This, as I understand it,
is what is called a "swap file" in UNIX - used to swap memory
to disk, in the event that memory usage exceeds actual available
RAM.
Click to expand...

Yes, this is the swap file, also known as the page file or paging file.
This is typically set to about 1.5 x the amount of RAM in your computer, but
the debate as to the "best" size for a page file is at least as long and
vigorous as the one about whether it is better to shut down your computer at
night or just let it run continuously. :^{ For an in-depth discussion of
the subject, see this page, written by MVP Alex Nichol, who died just last
month:

Virtual Memory in Windows XP
http://aumha.org/win5/a/xpvm.php

RC
 
Hi R.C.,

R. C. White said:
I can help with some of your questions, but I hope some guru will jump
in for the rest of them. I'm no chkdsk expert because I seldom need to
use it. ;<) But, chkdsk on my WinXP boot volume does not even show a
line for "hidden files". I've not looked in the Event Viewer.
Click to expand...

I'm not even sure that it's the chkdsk program that runs when I do a disk
check in Win2k. I'll try running it from the command line and compare
the results.
Yes, this is the swap file, also known as the page file or paging file.
This is typically set to about 1.5 x the amount of RAM in your computer,
but the debate as to the "best" size for a page file is at least as long
and vigorous as the one about whether it is better to shut down your
computer at night or just let it run continuously. :^{ For an in-depth
discussion of the subject, see this page, written by MVP Alex Nichol,
who died just last month:

Virtual Memory in Windows XP
http://aumha.org/win5/a/xpvm.php
Click to expand...

Thanks for the link. Currently, my swap file is equal to my memory (2 gigs).
I'll read up on the info' on the link you provided to see if it's worth
bumping up to a larger size. (Although I'm not sure I can on a FAT32 partition
which I'm using for my system drive).

Nick
--
 
But, chkdsk on my WinXP boot volume does not even show a
It seems to do so for FAT:

[23:12:27.79] [Administrator] G:\>chkdsk c:
The type of the file system is FAT.
[...]
1,044,299,776 bytes total disk space.
23,904,256 bytes in 167 hidden files.

whereas on NTFS:

[23:12:36.12] [Administrator] G:\>chkdsk g:
The type of the file system is NTFS.
[...]
15607147 KB total disk space.
7764060 KB in 67316 files.
22428 KB in 4428 indexes.
0 KB in bad sectors.
118611 KB in use by the system.
45600 KB occupied by the log file.
7702048 KB available on disk.

No hidden.
I'm not even sure that it's the chkdsk program that runs when I do a disk
check in Win2k. I'll try running it from the command line and compare
the results.
Click to expand...

Unless you have additional tools, such as Norton SystemWorks, it is. It
might be autochk, but IIRC it's the native version of chkdsk.
Thanks for the link. Currently, my swap file is equal to my memory (2 gigs).
I'll read up on the info' on the link you provided to see if it's worth
bumping up to a larger size. (Although I'm not sure I can on a FAT32 partition
which I'm using for my system drive).
Click to expand...

You should convert to NTFS anyway, it's BSOD-proof, it has an operation
log and it is self-healing. It also has many other advantages and tweaks,
it's faster, etc.
 
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