Finding All files with 0 Bytes Size on Disk

kwrite09 · 03 Jul 2015

I've recently tried out Windows 2012 Data Deduplication and due to an error I could not retrieve all my files.
I'm trying to find all of the files on the disk that say they have a file size but when you look under "Size on disk" it says it takes up 0 Bytes.

I've tried sorting the files by Size and by Space used. I've searched using Windows Explorer with size:empty but am coming up with nothing.

Thanks for your help.

P.S. I took a look into Sparse file utility but it turns out these files aren't sparse files.

EDIT: I've also tried chkdsk but it reports that there are no errors on the drive.

Ztruker · 03 Jul 2015

Can you post a screen capture of where it shows it has a size but size on disk is 0?

kwrite09 · 03 Jul 2015

Here's a screenshot of what's happening.
Another thing to note is I can only delete the files on a Windows 2012 Computer.

Berton · 03 Jul 2015

The screenshot shows you are looking at files on a WDC/Western Digital My Passport portable HDD. Have you tried the same thing with it plugged into a different computer?

What is the "Windows 2012" computer? Latest version of Windows is 8.1 with Windows 10 Technical Preview available as a test/'beta' version.

kwrite09 · 03 Jul 2015

Yes I've tried multiple computers and OSes. It seems because I used Windows Server 2012 de-duplication feature I can only read it on Windows Server 2012.

If I try to delete the files or open them on any other OS I get this error message:

If I could find a quick way to locate all of those files I could delete them all without having to go through each directory one by one.

Berton · 03 Jul 2015

When all else fails I try Copying the usable files to another drive, internal or external, then reformat the portable drive. I've only had to do that once on my My Passport 750GB drive.

Ztruker · 03 Jul 2015

Use a Linux Live Disc or flash drive. Boot it and delete what you need to.
Linux Mint, Ubuntu are good choices.

Berton · 03 Jul 2015

Only caution I'd give with the Linux Mint LiveDVD is the USB drive may need to be plugged in before starting the computer so Linux picks it up. That's the only major difference I've run into between the LiveDVD and the installed OS where a USB device usually is found just like with Windows.