Windows Vista help: A hidden recycle bin folder is taking up 75 GB!

bluesilver8

A hidden recycle bin folder is taking up 75 GB!

Lately I’ve noticed that my hard drive space has been diminishing even when I delete movies, music, and other large files. Now I’m down to 18 GB of free space from nearly 90 GB, and I’ve deleted a lot of things! I’ve tried emptying my recycle bin, running anti-virus programs, running a disk clean up, removing programs I don’t use often, defragmenting my disk, and so forth. Then I decided to uncheck the “hide system folders” option so I could look at them, and I found a folder in my C drive called “$Recycle.Bin”, and it’s empty, but the properties of that folder says it contains 75 GB of space!!!! So now I know where all my space went to, but I’m afraid to delete that “empty” folder. What the heck is going on, and does anyone have any suggestions on how to fix this?

Btw, I’m running Windows Vista Home Edition. If you need any more specifics, let me know.

EDIT: This isn’t funny and the problem isn’t as simple as emptying the recycle bin! I’m not that stupid :P

EDIT: Yeah I’m sorry - I shouldn’t have gotten so upset… I was just really worried about the possibility of having to take my computer in for some kind of repair, cuz I can’t afford it. I greatly appreciate all your help! However, I found a solution on a website in case anyone else has the same problem: Open the command prompt and type: rd /s /q C:\$Recycle.bin inside, and then press enter. It basically resets the recycle bin, thus emptying out that vast empty space.

This closed post was written 2 months, 3 weeks ago | V/U/S: 749, 12, 6 | Edit Post | Report Post

Reciprocity (0)

Since writing this post bluesilver8 may have helped people, but has not within the last 4 days. bluesilver8 is a verified member, has been around for 3 months and has 6 posts and 2 replies to their name.

Post Tags (3)

Windows Vista, Recycle Bin, Computer Problems (How Tags Affect Reciprocity)

Replies (12)

Where were you?

Click and drag to move the map around. FAQ: How we place people on this map »
You can also watch events on Help.com as they happen

Mouse over the map for 2 seconds to see an expanded, interactive view

fla 14 #
An Unknown Location | 2 months, 3 weeks ago (9 minutes after post)

LOL THATS FUNNY AS ****

Anonymous #
2 months, 3 weeks ago (35 minutes after post)

just empty the recycle bin, the files have to go somewhere..

bluesilver8 edited this post 2 months, 3 weeks ago. Read the previous text »

A hidden recycle bin folder is taking up 75 GB!

Lately I’ve noticed that my hard drive space has been diminishing even when I delete movies, music, and other large files. Now I’m down to 18 GB of free space from nearly 90 GB, and I’ve deleted a lot of things! I’ve tried emptying my recycle bin, running anti-virus programs, running a disk clean up, removing programs I don’t use often, defragmenting my disk, and so forth. Then I decided to uncheck the “hide system folders” option so I could look at them, and I found a folder in my C drive called “$Recycle.Bin”, and it’s empty, but the properties of that folder says it contains 75 GB of space!!!! So now I know where all my space went to, but I’m afraid to delete that “empty” folder. What the heck is going on, and does anyone have any suggestions on how to fix this?

Btw, I’m running Windows Vista Home Edition. If you need any more specifics, let me know.

Help me with: How do I estimate the limit?

Dragon_Lady 5 #
An Undisclosed Location | 2 months, 3 weeks ago (41 minutes after post)

Make a copy of the file, and put it in your documents. Then try deleting it. If something goes wonky, just replace the copy.

Help me with: Introducing my son.

dave1971199 2 #
An Unknown Location | 2 months, 3 weeks ago (46 minutes after post)

Do you have system restore on? You may find that system restore is taking up all your space. I had 25GB in system restore and only 8GB of installed files.

Try turning off system restore and you should get you hard drive space back. Or run this little utility. It should remove the files in the recycle bin and doesn’t need to be installed.

http://www.atribune.org/index.php?opt…

Help me with: Is it better to be hated than ignored?

Anonymous #
2 months, 3 weeks ago (48 minutes after post)

all you had to do was say you’ve tried that b4, most of us are trying to reply as quickly as possible and don’t have time to read alot of details..
iv’e never heard of that before but i’m sure it’s just a vista quirk
i’d try deleting the empty folder, it can’t contain nothing if it’s taking 75gb of space

thep 20 #
An Undisclosed Location | 2 months, 3 weeks ago (50 minutes after post)

Good answer from Dragon_Lady.

You can also open the folder and check each file in it. Then delete the files you know you dont want to keep.
Will take a long time but their should only be files that you have already decided not to keep.

Help me with: A little gem I found on the internet.

thep 20 #
An Undisclosed Location | 2 months, 3 weeks ago (53 minutes after post)

Forgot to say, if there are no files in it, then deleting the folder itself is not going to harm anything on your computer.

Help me with: A little gem I found on the internet.

zilverknight 41 #
An Unknown Location | 2 months, 3 weeks ago (7 hours, 53 minutes after post)

Do you have multiple accounts on the pc?

Help me with: Knight Flash in and flashes out!

slogalb #
An Unknown Location | 2 months, 2 weeks ago (1 day, 8 hours after post)

I also had this problem. My hidden “C:\$Recycle.bin” folder was consuming more than 70GB of space even though my recycle bin was “Emptied”. Here is how I freed it.

1. Temporarily change the Recycle Bin properties for the C: to “Do not move files to the Recycle Bin. Remove files immediately when deleted.” Don’t know if this is really necessary but I did it anyway.

2. Open Windows Explorer and type in C:\$Recycle.bin, for me this folder appeared empty because I emptied my recycle bin.

3. From the Tools menu choose Folder Options. Under the View Tab, unselect the Hide protected operating system files box.

4. Now you should see a bunch of hidden Recycle folders in the folder.

5. Delete them.

6. Change you Recycle bin properties and View options back if you wish.

This account has been deactivated.

bluesilver8 edited this post 2 months, 2 weeks ago. Read the previous text »

A hidden recycle bin folder is taking up 75 GB!

Lately I’ve noticed that my hard drive space has been diminishing even when I delete movies, music, and other large files. Now I’m down to 18 GB of free space from nearly 90 GB, and I’ve deleted a lot of things! I’ve tried emptying my recycle bin, running anti-virus programs, running a disk clean up, removing programs I don’t use often, defragmenting my disk, and so forth. Then I decided to uncheck the “hide system folders” option so I could look at them, and I found a folder in my C drive called “$Recycle.Bin”, and it’s empty, but the properties of that folder says it contains 75 GB of space!!!! So now I know where all my space went to, but I’m afraid to delete that “empty” folder. What the heck is going on, and does anyone have any suggestions on how to fix this?

Btw, I’m running Windows Vista Home Edition. If you need any more specifics, let me know.

EDIT: This isn’t funny and the problem isn’t as simple as emptying the recycle bin! I’m not that stupid :P

Help me with: How do I estimate the limit?

bluesilver8 closed this post.

This post has been closed, no more replies. Thanks!

Invite Others to Help

Seeing as this post is closed, no invites are allowed.

Windows Vista help: A hidden recycle bin folder is taking up 75 GB! - Help.com

A hidden recycle bin folder is taking up 75 GB!

Reciprocity (0)

Post Tags (3)

Replies (12)

Invite Others to Help

Help.com Homepage