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Q: I have a 160GB Western Digital Hard Drive partitioned into a 40GB Operating System partition and the other 120GB for my files. However, when I run Disk Cleanup utility from within Vista Ultimate, it shows multiple 131GB options for me to clean up. After I clicked OK to cleanup the selected entries, it erased everything on the 40GB partition. I then had to reinstall Windows Vista, but the problem seems to be recurring.
(Information in this post applies to Windows 7 & Vista systems only)
A: Having received three more such questions, I decided to work on this issue. Here is the screenshot of what Disk Cleanup displayed:
Fig 1: Disk Cleanup showing the list of files to delete.
According to the above Disk Cleanup graphic, the Windows Error Reporting files constituted to 196 GB, which certainly is impossible! I asked for the registry export of this key from one of my clients:
The above registry location contains the list of Disk Cleanup handlers and their registration information. Once I got the registry export, I compared it with my system and noted that a really important value named Folder was missing in each of the following subkeys under the VolumeCaches branch:
|_ Windows Error Reporting Queue Files
|_ Windows Error Reporting System Archive Files
|_ Windows Error Reporting System Queue Files
I came across this paragraph from the MSDN documentation:
Description for the Folder registry value:
A specific folder or folders to search for items matching entries in the FileList value. You can specify wildcards using the ? or * characters. If the value is of type REG_SZ, multiple folder names are separated using the | character, without spaces on either side of it. If a CSIDL value is present, only one folder can be specified in this value. The location indicated by the CSIDL value is prepended to that folder path to compose a search path. For an example, see the CSIDL value description. If this value is absent, the root folder of the current volume is used. The DDEVCF_DOSUBDIRS flag is needed in that case to search the entire drive.
Note the last line which states that the Disk Cleanup will recursively search the entire volume for the list of files mentioned in the FileList registry value (*.* wildcard used in this case) and include everything on the volume for deletion, if the DDEVCF_DOSUBDIRS flags is enabled (which is enabled by default).
Fixing the Disk Cleanup WER Handlers in the Registry
I created the REG file cleanmgrfix.reg (for Windows 7/Vista systems) to fix the Folder registry values in each of the above registry keys, and the issue was resolved after applying the fix. This is what Disk Cleanup showed:
Fig 2: Disk Cleanup screenshot, after fixing the registry values.
Editor’s Note: I could identify where the problem was, but I had no clue on how the Folders registry value vanished in the above registry keys. This may have been a result of running a registry cleaner. At any case, have an eye on the disk space showed in Total amount of the disk space you gain: section of the Disk Cleanup window every time when you do the cleanup work.
I hope this post helped you avert a major problem in your system. Readers who’re using registry cleaners and experiencing this issue, feel free to comment on this article.
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I had this problem as well and the fix worked (thank you). I have discarded my registry “fixer” from uniblue. Now I don’t have the same problem, but I am still missing half my hard drive (140 gig). I can only find 69 gig of files, but disk properties shows 134 gig of space used. Any ideas on how to reclaim the missing space?
I appreciate this blog and these posts so much. I actually battled this issue a few times on the computer I just purchased and spent the whole first week sitting in front of it angry as heck as I watched everything vanish off of it before my eyes. You people have given my computer back to me. Thank you very much for this fix. Very Much!!!
Hi,
I too had this issue. It reported more than 180GB for me.
After running disk cleanup, my entire HDD was literally formatted.
Thanks for the tweak!
I have been running Eusing Free Register cleaner, so as you mentioned above, perhaps that deleted the ‘important value’ in the registry sub keys.
Man, this immediately fixed the problem. You’re a life-saver! Too bad I had already wiped my laptop :(
But you saved my desktop!
Thank you so much. This post was very helpful. The first time it happened, i was a noob to vista, and it said i had two lots of 85gb files to clear, from a 250gb hdd. So, i went ahead and cleared it. After that, it was a clean install, as it reported dll files missing for windows and every application installed. It came up once more, but left ticks out of those boxes until i found this fix.
Thank you once again :)
I had this same issue.
BUT Not before installing SP1 and having to re-install my OS for a totally different reason (Office 2003 and System Restore didn’t agree with each other:Major Problems). After my re-install I used the same reg cleaners I always had used with no issues or errors, then I used my cleanup manager utility but now it was telling me it was going to delete 114 GB! Unfortunately, at the time I didn’t realize it meant GB; I thought it meant KB so I let delete the files. I think you all can guess what happened next: Another re-install was in order. I used my reg cleaners again not knowing until now that that was part of the problem. Of course I didn’t let it delete but I still found that error to be scary and annoying. Thanks to this post I know what caused it now and that registry fix worked for me.
I think a combo of using reg cleaners and installing SP1 might have been to blame.
I never use a RegCleanTool. Probably a SP1 sideeffect Bug………..
ah … that makes sense
I used the WinASO registry cleaner tool
(I originally thought it was Vista’s problem …)
I guess that’s how I lost all my files and had to do a *hard* recover of my drive
good to have stuff like acronis trueimage
anyway … one other option to avoid this issue
is to go to the “control panel/problem reports” and clean from there .. (that’s how I got around it before reading this post :P … and I think I will be doing that still ….)
I had this problem occur on my computer…and yes all my files were deleted….I am using a registry cleaner(netcom3) and I do believe it is responsible for the deletion of these string values…however I have not been able to locate the files to ignore for deletion in the registry cleaner…So I have just been skiping the reg cleaner and the problem seems to be fixed so far I re entered the string values….the missing folder..and all is good so far