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On a windows 10 Home system there is a file which does not appear to have any name. It does not appear in either Explorer or with the dir command. Macrium backup tells me (using the total amount backed up) that it's backing it up.

However, it gets backed up and is also visible to WinDirStat with name <unknown>. As it's 70GB it's clogging up my backup disk and I want to delete it. I've tried chkdsk but that doesn't throw up any errors.

Screenshot from WinDirStat

It's not on the system partition, which might make things easier.

I've run WinDirStat in 3 modes: logged in as admin, logged in as a user, and running as admin while logged in as user. And get 3 different results for the size of the unknown file: 142.7GB, 70.5GB and 738MB respectively. It looks as if there are files there which have different owners and so give different total sizes - but I thought that admin accounts had access to all files.

Any ideas how to get rid of it (or at least identify if it's safe to do so)?

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  • Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.
    – DavidPostill ♦
    Commented Oct 4, 2021 at 12:23

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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I found the problem.

It appears that WinDirStat only sees files that the current user has access to. @Bob suggested I use WizTree which uses the MFT directly. Comparing the two I found some folders which had genuine files in them (hence the backup size) but an unknown owner, and no access rights to myself. Explorer and WinDirStat reported them as zero size. Changing ownership and access rights cleared up the situation.

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  • This came up in "Low quality" queue due to the formatting and brief content. I re-worded it to fit better on a Q&A site; these are different from internet forums as the Tour shows. It's a good idea to check how to answer for future reference. You are answering your question so other than re-wording I'm going to leave it as is - other community members might leave hints how it could be improved. Please check back after 48 hours and accept your answer. From Review
    – Peregrino69
    Commented Oct 4, 2021 at 16:09
  • @Peregrino69 Is this better for you?
    – Peter
    Commented Oct 5, 2021 at 9:24
  • @Peregrino69 I wasn't trying to be snarky and I'm sorry if I offended you inadvertently. I'm not familiar with the mechanisms of SuperUser and thought that it was you that had marked it as 'low quality'. If it was someone else, I'd better wait to see if my new wording, which I think is more explicit, is acceptable to whomever marked it down.
    – Peter
    Commented Oct 5, 2021 at 10:23
  • hah :-D No worry, seems I misunderstood you as well :-D It's a good idea to check the Help in new sites, as the rules differ per site. Any answer can be up/downvoted at any point, and any user can also flag postings for different reasons. A flagged post ends up in a queue, where someone else reviews it, and can either agree or dis-. It takes multiple reviewers to agree on a flag before a post is deleted. Posts can also be edited by community members with sufficient rep. Once a member earns the privilege, the edits must be for a LONG time approved by senior community members before showing.
    – Peregrino69
    Commented Oct 5, 2021 at 10:38
  • I'll be deleting my previous comment now as it's redundant, you got the message, and this one a bit later on :-) Just a side note - I don't offend easily, chose the word "snarky" deliberately to point out that someone with a thinner skin might :-)
    – Peregrino69
    Commented Oct 5, 2021 at 10:39

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