সব ভালো স্পেস কোথায় গেল, এবং সব বাইট কোথায়? Street-wise nerd কোথায় যেন আমার ডিস্ক ফ্রি আপ করবে? যাহোক, সম্প্রতিকাল, আমার উইন্ডোজ ৭ বক্সের একটিতে একটি rather bizarre disk usage problem এনকাউন্টার করলাম। ১২০GB SSD হঠাৎ space-এ short পড়ল, এমনকি এটি supposed to be only about 50% utilized। আমি এক্সপ্লোর করা শুরু করলাম।
এই ধরণের টাস্কের জন্য obvious choice হচ্ছে WinDirStat, যা আমরা ১৮ মাস আগে use দেখেছিলাম। এটি একটি simple, no-nonsense tool, এবং এটি একটি detailed map and listing display করবে সব files and folders-র। Except in my case, it wasn't really helpful। The presented data only amounted to about 60GB। But there was a big chunk, labeled unknown, occupying 55GB of its own। আমার কোনো idea নেই এটি কী, কিন্তু এটি দেখতে যেন কিছু যেটি there হওয়া উচিত নয়। তাই আমি আরও এক্সপ্লোর করা শুরু করলাম।
রহস্য উন্মোচন
এই potential problem-এ approximately a million different answers and solutions আছে। আপনি অনলাইনে সার্চ করলে "Windows windirstat unknown file" আপনি যে চقيام করেছেন এই পেজে land করার ঠিক আগে, আপনি লোকজন all sorts of wizardry mention করবেন related to how Windows works and counts its disk space। এটি একটু আরও difficult করে তোলে right solution খুঁজে বের করতে।
Which is why this article is also about what NOT to do। Random files delete করা big no। System files-র সাথে fiddle করা উচিত নয়। আমি most warmly recommend করছি আপনি backup any important personal data before commencing on a data freedom journey। And only then slowly, carefully start implementing non-intrusive, non-destructive fixes first।
One of the recommendations is running chkdsk। Not bad। But then, it does not really help us understand why or how we may have ended up with 55GB of space eaten by some mysterious data somewhere। Before we can fix the problem, we need to understand if it is one in the first place। And since WinDirStat does not help us properly identify the unknown files, we need a different tool।
TreeSize to the rescue
I'm a lumberjack, and I'm okay, I disk all night, and I check all day। Anyhow, this utility has a similar functionality to WinDirStat, but it does it in a slightly different manner, plus less graphics। However, it might help us get a better view of the disk usage।
Indeed, TreeSize reveals a different result। Windows usage is 90GB rather than 35GB as WinDirStat reported, and it turns out most of it is located inside System32\spool\drivers। This is a rather curious result, because there's no reason why you ought to have 50GB worth of printer drivers। Just as curious is the fact WinDirStat did not reflect this information in its own report। Perhaps these are corrupt files?
Browsing through the x64 directory, I soon learned there were roughly 12,500 of these, each containing the exact same set of DLL। For some weird reason, I had these thousands of instances of drivers for a particular network printer, absolutely identical to one another। At this point, armed with enough knowledge and intuition, I removed all of them apart from a single folder। I also did not touch any other directories and files that were unrelated to the network device। Finally, I verified the printer functionality was unaffected by my delete action।
A subsequent scan with both WinDirStat and TreeSize showed matched values in both tools, as you would expect, so the discrepancy was now resolved। The former had no more complaints about unknown files, and the disk usage was down to about 60GB। And there you go, problem fixed!
উপসংহার
আমি জানি না কী trigger করলো weird creation of 12,500 folders containing the exact same driver set। It must have been a crazy startup script or a similar error। Apparently, the files were useless, or maybe even created in a non-standard fashion, which was why WinDirStat struggled with the report। It does not matter, we solved it।
This article might not necessarily apply to your use case, but the principle is 100% valid। If you encounter unknown, inexplicable data, make sure you run at least one more check with a different tool। No matter how weird, the data should still be consistent, and if reporting tools struggle to give you a unified view, that's your first problem। Hopefully, this guide teaches you how to approach similar issues in the future। Correlation, consistency, comparison between good and bad systems, all a necessary part of healthy problem solving। Take care, and may your disks be free।
চেয়ার্স।
