[SERVER] Windows SBS 2008 - Missing Disk Space

[wmmartin]

I'm hoping someone can help me, I've exhausted everything I know and googled it too just in case I've missed something.

I have a 2008 SBS Server with a 120GB system partition. I've run a Treesize across the drive (right click "Run as Administrator"), which has turned up 60GB of files. The drive only has 23GB of free space.

Where is the other 37GB?

Shadow Copies are turned off on the System drive, and I've enabled and disabled it just to ensure that the OS didn't think it was on before.

I've run a CHKDSK and that's reported no problems...

I'm at a loss, can you guys throw some ideas at me please.

[wmmartin]

Turned out to be redirected user folders, which were still on C: drive and the administrator account had zero visibility of what was inside them.

[rainwulf]

BTW, do NOT take ownership of those files. It screws shit up BAD.

[NSanity]

Originally Posted by rainwulf

BTW, do NOT take ownership of those files. It screws shit up BAD.

There is a fix for this;

http://mypkb.wordpress.com/2008/12/2...uments-folder/

1. Download and install PsExec and PowerShell. PowerShell needs to be installed on the computer (probably a server) hosting the redirected folders.

2. Edit the $StartingDir and $Principal variables in the following script to match your environment. $StartingDir should be the path to the shared folder that contains all you users redirected My Documents folders, $Principal is the name of the local user or local group that should be granted the permission. It has to be a local account because the script will be run using the local system account, which doesn’t know about domain accounts. We’ll add domain users and/or groups later (step 4).

#ChangePermissions.ps1
# CACLS rights are usually
# F = FullControl
# C = Change
# R = Readonly
# W = Write

$StartingDir= "C:\Users"

$Principal=”DOMAINNAME\Domainadministrators”

$Permission="F"

$Verify=Read-Host `n "You are about to change permissions on all" `
"files starting at"$StartingDir.ToUpper() `n "for security"`
"principal"$Principal.ToUpper() `
"with new right of"$Permission.ToUpper()"."`n `
"Do you want to continue? [Y,N]"

if ($Verify -eq "Y") {

foreach ($file in $(Get-ChildItem $StartingDir -recurse)) {
#display filename and old permissions
write-Host -foregroundcolor Yellow $file.FullName
#uncomment if you want to see old permissions
#CACLS $file.FullName

#ADD new permission with CACLS
CACLS $file.FullName /E /P "${Principal}:${Permission}" >$NULL

#display new permissions
Write-Host -foregroundcolor Green "New Permissions"
CACLS $file.FullName
}
}

Note: This script is a simplified version of Don Jones’ script found here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/m...owershell.aspx. Check it out for more options.

3. Now, we need to run the above script using PsExec using the local system account. Note that the command line shown will run PsExec on the current computer and that the -noexit switch will prevent PowerShell from closing when the script terminates, so you get a chance to read the output.

Here is what you need to type at the command prompt (changing the paths and file names to match your environment):

>psexec -s -i powershell -noexit "& 'C:\Path\To\ChangePermissions.ps1'"

The -i switch will make the PowerShell window visible on the Desktop. If you use Remote Desktop to connect to your server, make sure that you connect to the console or you won’t see any output.

4. Now that the local Administrators group has full control on all files and folders (and I am assuming that you are a member of the local Administrator group), you can run the script again as yourself (remove the -s switch) to give domain users and groups full control, using the domain\user or domain\group format for the $Principal variable.

5. Done!

[Great_Guru]

Originally Posted by NSanity

There is a fix for this;

http://mypkb.wordpress.com/2008/12/2...uments-folder/

Like!

Thanks NSanity. I'll keep this handy for down the track.

[wmmartin]

Yeah I didn't take ownership. I actually found it by using defraggler. It looks at the MFT to see where files are located and shows you the size. From that I was able to discern that redirected folders were the issue and advised the users to clean their shit up.

Thanks for the fix, though, that's awesome!