HD capacity has diminished - unprecedented problem

dee2809 · 18 Dec 2009

Hello

I am in deep trouble with my system drive where Windows 7 is installed because this hard drive capacity has diminished from 924 GB to only about 12 GB left. The only thing I can think of that is related to this reduction is BitLocker Drive Encryption. In the BitLocker Drive Encryption dialogue box, it says my system drive is still encrypting. I am wondering this would be the cause of the dimished drive space. Please post your thoughts or if possible solutions.

Regards,

Dee

Night Hawk · 18 Dec 2009

If you are running the BltLocker tool now to encrypt your main drive ut oh? Mainly that was intended for secondary drives/devices. You could end up locking yourself out of Windows there!

The drive space is diminished since it is in use by the tool itself. Once the tool is finished having been assigned a password the entire drive will be locked up and unaccessible until you unlock it with the assigned password. Here that was used on a usb flash drive and remains locked until simply unlocking it for a one time session or selecting the total "always unlock on this computer option".

dee2809 · 19 Dec 2009

I am already using a password on my flash drive plugged into the PC. I am puzzled to hear that I may be locked out once the encryption completes.. I had kept more than 900 GB of free space in my system drive with BitLocker Encryption deployed before I noticed it went all the way down to 12 GB or so. Some more help would be appreciated.

Thank you

Night Hawk · 19 Dec 2009

Youare running BitLocker to encrypt the drive you are booted from there. The tool wasn't intended for that to start with. For simply locking up Windows you would assign a logon password. For other files and data you would at least encrypt a second partition not the OS primary while booted in the Windows installation you are in.

dee2809 · 19 Dec 2009

It is only the boot partition which is to remian unencrypted in order to boot into your OS. In fact my system partition had been encrypted showing more than 800 GB of free space before this reduction of free space suddenly came about.

nate42nd · 19 Dec 2009

Download and run this tool.

It will show you exactly what your HD is "full of"

It's only 627K

WinDirStat - Free software downloads and software reviews - CNET Download.com

dee2809 · 20 Dec 2009

Thank you for this link. The program looks very handy. But in my case, it shows only less than 100 GB for the entire drive. I am not certain what has happened to the remaining 800 and odd gigabytes. I am thinking that BitLocker Drive Encryption temporarily locks you out from using the encrypting space.

Night Hawk · 20 Dec 2009

It sounds like something hung on you where one option to view the drive would be booting off of a separate Windows installation on another drive or a live Linux cd. The BitLocker tool would normally have completed by now and presented you with a prompt for the password and option to unlock the drive entirely.

The WinDirStat program is an older one there for use on the normal Windows not an encrypted drive or one inprogress? Since something goofed along the way you could try Use Ubuntu Live CD to Backup Files from Your Dead Windows Computer :: the How-To Geek not only to view what's on the drive which will still be there but backup things from the drive in case of...?

Have you tried starting the BitLocker a second time to see if you get the password prompt? or to see if it completes the process entirely? It sounds like you need a disaster recovery plan at this point however.