Cannot delete / remove +-1TB of Temp Files on 1/2TB Drive?

I did the following:

Ran Disk Cleanup without Temp Box checked, then rebooted.
Ran Disk Cleanup with Temp Box checked, then rebooted.
Ran Disk Cleanup without Temp Box checked but asked for the System Files to be cleaned, then rebooted.
Ran Disk Cleanup with Temp Box checked an asked for the System Files to be cleaned, then rebooted.
This last sequence triggered a Startup Repair which finished successfully.

I am out of quarters now and need to take a nap before going to work.
Thanks for your persistence and patience.

Mike

I scanned thru this thread. My apologies if the suggestions below have been mentioned before and I just missed it.

Try these two tutorials:
Disk Check
followed by
Check Disk (chkdsk) - Read Event Viewer Log

Pauly said:

I think a vital point is missing here, you do not and never did have that many temp files on your system, they wouldn't fit on the hard drive

This was mentioned in the original post. The OP is aware that the figure is impossible. That said, Windows Explorer and the Disk Cleanup tool will count files multiple times if there are hard links involved. It is possible to create a folder which has a single 1GB file and then create lots of hard links to that file. This could cause Windows Explorer and the Disk Cleanup tool to report file sizes in excess of disk capacity:

In the image below, there are 1.51TB of temp files on a ~25GB disk.



This is the same problem that users get into when they use Windows Explorer to try and determine the size of C:\Windows\winsxs.

I realize that it is unlikely that there are lots of hardlinks in the user's temp folder, but it is possible. It is more probable that the file system has a problem; hence, my suggesting chkdsk.

The OP uses Compress this drive to save disk space
Could that cause an issue with space used reported ?

DavidE said:

The OP uses Compress this drive to save disk space
Could that cause an issue with space used reported ?

Good catch.

Here are the numbers with that option checked and the hard links in place:




And without the hardlinks:



Compressing the hard drive does not seem to change things that much.

I went the CHKDSK after Reboot route.
It reported finding nothing in error.
The Screens go by fast.
Is there a way to print or stop them?

-System
-Provider[ Name] Microsoft-Windows-Wininit[ Guid] {206f6dea-d3c5-4d10-bc72-989f03c8b84b}[ EventSourceName] Wininit
-EventID1001[ Qualifiers] 16384
Version0Level4Task0Opcode0Keywords0x80000000000000-TimeCreated[ SystemTime] 2016-02-04T20:21:44.000000000Z
EventRecordID50091Correlation-Execution[ ProcessID] 0[ ThreadID] 0
ChannelApplicationComputerSevenPro64Security

-EventData
Checking file system on C: The type of the file system is NTFS. Volume label is System Disk. A disk check has been scheduled. Windows will now check the disk. CHKDSK is verifying files (stage 1 of 3)... 478464 file records processed. File verification completed. 18418 large file records processed. 0 bad file records processed. 2 EA records processed. 257 reparse records processed. CHKDSK is verifying indexes (stage 2 of 3)... 598210 index entries processed. Index verification completed. 0 unindexed files scanned. 0 unindexed files recovered. CHKDSK is verifying security descriptors (stage 3 of 3)... 478464 file SDs/SIDs processed. Cleaning up 2625 unused index entries from index $SII of file 0x9. Cleaning up 2625 unused index entries from index $SDH of file 0x9. Cleaning up 2625 unused security descriptors. Security descriptor verification completed. 59874 data files processed. CHKDSK is verifying Usn Journal... 36010320 USN bytes processed. Usn Journal verification completed. CHKDSK discovered free space marked as allocated in the master file table (MFT) bitmap. Windows has made corrections to the file system. 488283132 KB total disk space. 341165696 KB in 320513 files. 308000 KB in 59875 indexes. 0 KB in bad sectors. 597728 KB in use by the system. 65536 KB occupied by the log file. 146211708 KB available on disk. 4096 bytes in each allocation unit. 122070783 total allocation units on disk. 36552927 allocation units available on disk. Internal Info: 00 4d 07 00 ef cd 05 00 31 73 09 00 00 00 00 00 .M......1s...... 95 08 00 00 01 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................ 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................ Windows has finished checking your disk. Please wait while your computer restarts.

Here is a tutorial showing how to read the Check Disk results:
Check Disk (chkdsk) - Read Event Viewer Log

Nothing seem to have change. I must be missing something. Perhaps, I should just leave things as they are! A number of members have helped with their suggestions / recommendations. I want to thank them for their input and efforts on my behalf. If there is a change to the "Temp File" status of my System Drive, I'll report back on what and why. Thanks again for you help.