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Disk cleanup did exactly the same for me on my windows disk on a fresh install untweaked in any way... everything was lost. my progam files folder was empty and no shortcuts in start menu...

was pretty unhappy with the result and had to do a reinstall.

Thanks for finding this out. Good to know about this bug just incase.

Yep,
Just came across the very same thing on a friends computer.

Definitely thinking of NOT getting Vista anytime soon. Like I was to begin with!!

What model Toshiba?

I'm calling foul on this whole thread- the dialog boxes posted on the first post's screen shots are not the default Vista size (the cleanmgr dialog is a couple of pixels short, the disk properties dialog is missing more than a few lines of blank space under the "Index this drive for faster searching"). I checked it against three of my computers running Vista and all of the dialog boxes were the same size.
And if you look real close, you'll see black pixels on the corner of each dialog box. This isn't abnormal, per se, particularly if the user had a black desktop. But, the shadows around the dialog boxes extend around the black pixels instead of overlaying them as one would expect. It looks like the dialogs were cropped and edited and the shadow was added around the image- around the black pixels instead of over them.

This post has been edited by tao muon: Mar 18 2007, 00:50

No Foul
Here is a Screen Shot from my Toshiba P105 laptop with a fresh install of Vista Ultimate, i.e. no Tweaks...
The hardrive is 100GB with a 60GB C: partition.

Sorry to bump old thread, but I just learned about this the hard way.

So I'm bored last night with nothing to do, and decide to install Vista. Install went fine, no problems, latest X-Fi drivers actually work now, no crackling sound, woohoo, adding my favorite programs. Then I come across this.



Two 88.9 gigabyte entrys in Disk Cleanup, which you can see is obviously impossible because theres only 20 gigs on the drive. I pretty sure its either Registry Mechanic, or the latest beta version of CCleaner that caused this.

So I assume, how presumptuous of me, that I can just check em and it'll clear em out of there without actually doing anything as there obviously can't actually be that many error report files. So I check em, hit ok, it takes a while to do the cleaning, maybe ten minutes, when its done, all my desktop icons, quicklaunch icons, and entire list of all programs in the start menu goes completely blank, wiped out, ... uh oh, that can't be good, ah probly jus a little bug, I'll reboot. Windows Vista failed to start, can't locate, don't remember file name exactly but some critical windows driver, holy crap, it wiped out the, or at least some of, the Windows directory too. Tried a repair from the disk, nope, beyond repair just stopped and said can't repair this installation of Windows. Tried a thing or two more, safe mode, all the other repair type options, nope, Vista aint booting no more. Whatever it did, it completely trashed my entire Vista install. Had to start all over again from the very beginning, well theres 3 hours down the drain. Sonova b****!

So I installed Vista twice last night, that screenshot taken post second install, it happened again, definitely Registry Mechanic or CCleaner removing something to cause it, but I've burned a mental note into my brain never ever to check them again. Everything runs fine, zero problems, so watever the problem is it isn't actually affecting anything except those items in Disk Cleanup.

Suspect those two causes because, must be something doing it, as the problem came back too for second install, and I clearly remember running Disk Cleanup earlier before running them too to dump the hibernation file, and this problem wasn't there. All that changed between the first time I ran Disk Cleanup and the second, was bunch of Windows Updates installed, could be one of them that caused it but I'd think it would have happened to more people's systems too if that was the case, and some cleanup in preparation for copying all my personal data onto the drive, which consisted of a Registry Mechanic scan and cleaning, version 6.0.0.780, a CCleaner scan and cleaning, version 2.00.495 ReleaseCandidate, and a defrag with PerfectDisk, version 8.0.64. No manual registry or system tweaking done by me except for a few services shut down. I know it wasn't PerfectDisk as I've run this same version of it on Vista many times before up to a few months ago with no problems. I therefore assume it must have been Registry Mechanic, an overzealous registry scan can certainly lead to problems, or this version of CCleaner, which is not a final release version.

No problems here, 3 entries about Windows Error Reporting, all below 1 MB ... I'd say get rid of Registry Mechanic, see if that makes a difference ...

Hmm I use disk cleanup often to clean restore points I don't need and have never seen this issue, I will look out for it though.

Indeed mine too.

OMG - I've got the same exact problem -I LOST EVERYTHING after using the disk cleanup. My numbers were higher tho - I got hit twice - not sure what it is - but now after my second format, my Disk Cleanup numbers are back to normal.

Here is a post from another website that was trying to help me through this (the Vista Forums):
http://thevistaforums.com/index.php?showtopic=22065


Need Help ASAP!! I ran Vista's disk Clean up & I lost my program Files (luckily i have different drives and it did not delete my actual files but - all my program files are GONE!)

Okay - this has happened to me twice since Vista Home Premium came with my new Dell XPS 720 (a little over a month old).

The first time I ran disk cleanup (like i usually did on my other XP machines weekly) - it says i had over 800 GIGAbytes of files (hibernation files, Per User Archived Windows, Error Reporting (200gb), Per User Queued Windows Error Reporting (250gb), temp files, recycle bin, etc. etc.

All were checked - and when I went to clean it, ALL my icons on my desktop and quick launch started disappearing one by one. Poof!! they were ALL gone in a matter of seconds.

Then i went to my Start Menu - EMPTY! All my program files were gone. I typed in Outlook -- outlook came up and wanted to install - all my emails are gone. I installed Office 2007 again, then it couldn't find my outlook.pst files (personal files). So i lthink I lost everything there.

Went to open Firefox - Error message: Core DLL files not there
Went to open Ad-Aware : Skin File Error: 19811 has occured. Description: Cannnot load graphics. Application termitates.
Went to open my two FTP clients: Both tried to install it new again.

Get the jist... every program eitehr tries to reinstall or has a DLL error or missing file error message.

ALL MY PROGRAM FILES ARE GONE!!

So... Lucky me right? I'm smart - i did a system restore backup before I did this for the second time. But guess what?!?! The system restore is corrupt!! WTF?!?

I go to system restore from yesterday -- machine takes about 45 min to try to restore.. then re-boots itself saying it cannot Restore the last system restore point and everything is still gone!

What is happening?!?! This (will be) my second format because of this same problem in one month.

Would microsoft really have that in their Disk Cleanup for anyone to go and LOSE everything?!? Or does this sound like a virus? (BTW - I scannned before my disk cleanup with Ad-aware, Spybot & AVG and nothing was picked up except some lame tracking cookies).

I need help - I lost another 3 weeks worth of emails, etc. etc.

I googled till my fingers fell off and only found ONE other website that has a similar problem - but no solution.

Please help! blink.gif

My new machine is running vista Home Premium, 2 quad core cPU, 4 gigs of ram, etc. It's a sweet computer! tongue.gif

...and to answer some reasonable text book questions first: No i did not install any hardware or software right before this & I have not been playing with any settings. And when i did a search on my harddrives for outlook.PST i found one file from yesterday (yay right?!?!), but it's corrupt!!! . I downloaded three (free) software programs that are supposed to help with corrupt/missing outlook *.pst files but they were not able to recover my pst files. sad.gif sad.gif

I also just purchased $125 worth of ITunes/movies/tv shows for my new IPhone and I tunes won't load as well - I hope that stuff is not gone too!!

please help asap - i don't want another format - I want my program files back! with outlook*pst, etc.

This post has been edited by kindpeacho: Sep 22 2007, 15:02

Wow, that's pretty serious.

Definitely sounds like something horked up your registry or your filesystem. Heck, a lot of that stuff you're saying got deleted shouldn't be possible without elevating. Had you selected "my files" or the whole computer?

I just did a disk cleanup for the first time and I didn't have this problem, but it did free up 2 GB by checking the box "hibernation file cleaner" even though I have never hibernated even once lol.

After hours of research and cursing when my own disk cleanup decided to kill my OS, I figured I'd try to find a cure - and I have!


Open Regedit (start - run - regedit) and go to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\explorer\VolumeCaches

There you will find 4 keys called Windows error reporting.
Now if you look closely you will see that one (or more) is missing the Folder string.
Now, lets get to fixing it.

If you are in the " Windows Error Reporting Archive Files " key

Right click - New - Expandable String Value.

Call it Folder and use the following entry:

%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\WER\ReportArchive

If you are in the " Windows Error Reporting Queue Files " key

use: %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\WER\ReportQueue

If you're in the " Windows Error Reporting System Archive Files " key

use: %ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Microsoft\Windows\WER\ReportArchive

and if you're in the " Windows Error Reporting System Queue Files " key

use: %ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Microsoft\Windows\WER\ReportQueue

This worked for me atleast, i tried removing the Folder string and the bug was back, hope this helps guys!

Yea, because wasting time combing through mulitple applets instead of doing it in one place shows mad skillz. What a stupid thing to say.

mine works fine, always has.