What is c:\$Recycle.Bin\ ? and what do I do with it?

[Total Noob]

What is c:\$Recycle.Bin\ ?

I can't find this directory on a hard drive search, and it seems to have a lot of junk in it, so much that my hard drive is nearly full. Meanwhile, regular purging of my recylce bin doesn't affect it and it seems like Ccleaner can't proper purge what's there either.

What do I do to empty or delete this folder? It seems like it is causing me avoidable grief.

Thanks.

[AnnMarie]

See here

[Total Noob]

Thanks AnnMarie. I don't know why this didn't seem to clear with Ccleaner, which I have generally found to be pretty reliable.

Are there other troves of hidden junk in my file system that I can purge? My 20GB drive on my laptop reads practically full, and I don't really think that much besides my apps is there. I am thinking partly deleted files; could I have that loading me down?

Thanks again.

[Total Noob]

Originally Posted by AnnMarie

See here

Does this technique only work on a corrupted recycle bin? I tried it on spec on computers not known to have problems purging what's in the $Recycle.Bin folder, but nevertheless having unexplained loss of hard drive space, and it didn't work, it didn't find the file.

What could be causing and how do I fix a loss of hard drive space with no indication on Win Explorer? I opted to show all hidden files, and then added up the contents of all the folders on the drive by running Properties on all the folders at once, but it didn't come close to adding up to what Properties said is occupied when I ran it for the drive.

Thanks.

[Jintan]

Hello Total Noob,

Why don't we take a detailed look at things there.

Click here and download OldTimer's OTL to your desktop, then click that to open the scan display. At the top click "Scan All Users", then click "Run Scan". Make no other changes at this time.

When the scan completes, it will open two notepad windows. OTL.Txt and Extras.Txt. These are also saved in the same location as OTL.exe. Post the contents of those back here please.