Recycle bin keeps emptying itself despite settings

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My PC”s recycle bin is definitely not set to permanently delete files, but the bin empties itself every few hours. (haven’t got an exact timing yet.) so it always has somewhere between 0 and a handful of files in its 9 gigabytes. the PC has a 1.5 TB c drive, an internal swap drive, and a 3TB external backup drive which was added a month or so ago.

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Try disabling your Security software as a test.

Jerry

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will do – am currently trying to undelete everything in recycle bin, to attempt salvage. will get back to you; thanks for the suggestion will reply after weekend.

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Also check to see if you have any third part system cleaning tools scheduled to run.

Joe

--Joe

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Joe, i dont have any 3rd party sys clean programs running. i’ve just disabled Norton, and deleted a file. we’ll see what happens. on a related topic, where does the recycle bin reside if i have more than one system hard drives and delete a file from d: or e: – is the bin established on all drives, to hold ‘local” deletes, or is the bin on c: to hold all deletes regardless of where they previously resided? and, if i delete the recycle bin (dont know if this is possible) will the system recreate it on the next boot?

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Each drive has its own recycle bin and each user has their own recycle bin. To see the Recycle Bin you must not have “Hide Protected Operating System Files” enabled. It should be in the Root of each drive.

Joe

--Joe

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I haven’t used it for a long time but Norton used to have its own recycle bin replacement. Does your version of Norton have it?

Jerry

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it wasnt norton. my external backup drive was active while i was away this afternoon, according to the event log, and the file in the recycle bin vaporized. now we’ll try with the backup disabled and turn norton back on.

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status update: system log doesnt seem to have anything peculiar; backup s/w was not active; files in recycle still vaporized. will do a safe mode test soon as i can.

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status update: system log doesnt seem to have anything peculiar; backup s/w was not active; files in recycle still vaporized. will do a safe mode test soon as i can.

Bruce,
Hello… Could be that you have the “Recycle Bin” size set to small …so when the file size is larger than the setting …it’ will empty itself ..Right click on the “Recycle Bin” and choose “properties” …see what the settings are…:cheers: Regards Fred

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good idea but the bin is 9268 megabytes. thanks for the suggestion….

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good idea but the bin is 9268 megabytes. thanks for the suggestion….

Bruce,
Hello… Do you have the “Display delete confirmation dialog” checked?….Regards Fred

PS: How much space is left on your C: drive? (just your OS not the Hard drive capacity)

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dis play delete confirmation is checked. c drive – 914 gb free of 1.35 tb.
i’m not sure what you meant by “just the OS”, since i assume that various folders expand or shrink as needed. please clarify what you meant.. thanks very much.

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i’m not sure what you meant by “just the OS”, since i assume that various folders expand or shrink as needed. please clarify what you meant..

Bruce,
Hello… The “OS” will be by default your C: partition…..As many that have hard drives will partition the drive into several pieces …C: being the OS , D: for DATA, E:, F: G: etc for various other requirements

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Fred, thanks. i think i answered with the previous comment – c: is the OS and main data drive; it has 900 gig free space.

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an internal swap drive, and a 3TB external backup drive which was added a month or so ago.

Bruce,

Hello… trying to understand … Don’t know what an “internal swap” drive is ? Also did the problem start when you added the “external backup drive”? …. Some external USB type Backup Drives have their own software imbedded, and have caused much grief for some loungers in the past :cheers: Regards Fred

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Is the recycle bin being filled up on another drive?

I’m pretty certain I’ve seen this behaviour before when the recycle bin on drive D: for example becomes full, the recycle bin on drive C: is also affected.

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interesting questions, which is why i wondered early on about where the bin resides. (of course, after i thought about it for 30 seconds, it makes sense that it’s just a logical folder spanning all the drives.
the main HD is 1.5TB, partitioned by HP (afaik) into c and d—-

c: (912 gb free of 1.35 tb); program files, user files, temp…. (part of the physical drive that was shipped with the PC) – seagate drive
d: HP system recovery (1.5 free of 12); boot, hp, preload, programdata (part of the physical drive housing c:) – seagate drive
e: HP recovery (1.3 free of 8); this needs further discussion – see below, because this is a real question mark.
g: external backup (2.16 free of 2.72) – backup progs and data files – recently installed, replacing an earlier smaller external backup g:
k: internal swap (139 free of 141 gb.) this drive was the physical system drive of an older PC. I had formatted it and installed it in a spare bay shortly after first use of this PC about 2 years ago. (i use photoshop a lot, and this drive is to swap 50-75gb files as i change photos, to reduce traffic on c:) – old 160 gb samsung drive

i dont think the problem started with the recent external backup drive. As mentioned above, about a year ago, i used a second spare HD (i formatted it first) in an external shell with freeware backup software to make a cheap do-it-yourself backup drive. When i realized it was too small, i tossed it and bought the 3 gig. but i cannot tell when the problem began, unfortunately. (i did disable the backup g drive for a day, and the bin still emptied. )

now, the e drive is an interesting question that i hadnt looked at before. First, the dates indicate that it’s an ancient drive. With the exception of “HP_WSD.dat”, which was last modified in 2011, all the other files are dated from 1999 to 2006 (!!). second, i am not sure where it is physically resident. If it’s a partition on the samsung physical drive that k is on, then e is a complete waste of electrons.

Is there an easy way to see what the partitions of each physical drive are? I am certain that c and d are on the hard drive that came with the machine; i installed k and g, which leaves e.

So e may be irrelevant and possibly harmful. I have to open the box soon to replace the flash card reader (bent pin on the cf socket), so it’s a good time to temporarily disconnect k and see what happens to e. but there should be an easy software way to see where e resides – but i dont know what that way is.

And, if i format or erase e, what else could i screw up because i didn’t “uninstall” the stuff on e? (obviously i would copy e to a flashkey before doing this last step…)

So that’s a lot, but maybe it’s closer to an answer.

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Is there an easy way to see what the partitions of each physical drive are? I am certain that c and d are on the hard drive that came with the machine; i installed k and g, which leaves e.

windows explorer > right click on computer > left click on manage > Click on disk management

Jerry

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thanks!!

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i was beginning to get optimistic… but the problem persists.
i removed the paging hard drive (i was surprised to learn that i had not formatted a partition on this drive with an old windows operating system on it.) – so i though that somehow the second OS was causing a conflict with the recycle bins. the PC teased me for about 18 hours, as files went into the recycle bin and stayed there, like all well-behaved deleted files… and then, poof, the files are gone. so i am back to square 1.

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i was beginning to get optimistic… but the problem persists.
i removed the paging hard drive (i was surprised to learn that i had not formatted a partition on this drive with an old windows operating system on it.) – so i though that somehow the second OS was causing a conflict with the recycle bins.

Bruce could you post a “Screen Shot” of your “Disk Management”? Regards Fred

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Fred, hope this transfers. if not, i will email or dropbox it to you. 34029-disk-management

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Fred, hope this transfers.

Bruce,
Hello… I’m confused … Why is your OS C: not the Active partition? Why the G:? You can only have one active …should be your OS :cheers: Regards Fred

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wow! this floors me. i have no idea why the toshiba backup drive claimed itself as an active partition! the internal drive hosts c and d – as you saw. when i disconnected the backup drive, the 100 mb “system” section on disk 0 became “active” and nothing else seemed to happen.
when i plugged the backup in again, the 100mb SYSTEM segment changed to “system, active, primary” on 0; the toshiba ext on 1 is “active, primary partition”. so i have two active areas, two primary partitions – one per drive – with nothing (else) strange going on.

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wow! this floors me. i have no idea why the toshiba backup drive claimed itself as an active partition! the internal drive hosts c and d – as you saw. when i disconnected the backup drive, the 100 mb “system” section on disk 0 became “active” and nothing else seemed to happen.
when i plugged the backup in again, the 100mb SYSTEM segment changed to “system, active, primary” on 0; the toshiba ext on 1 is “active, primary partition”. so i have two active areas, two primary partitions – one per drive – with nothing (else) strange going on.

Bruce,
Hello… You can have an active partition on each drive …EX: If they both have a working OS installed … If there are only “Backups” on the G: there would be no boot info …so it shouldn’t be active… Have a look see at the “G” and post back …:cheers: Regards Fred

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here’s the root of the g drive. i don’t see it as being bootable… 34033-g-drive

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here’s the root of the g drive. i don’t see it as being bootable…

Bruce,
Hello… I would do the following steps …

1. Make a Full OS Image of each Hard Drive using a 3rd party imaging software (also burning the recovery disk) and storing them on a “External” ,Hard Drive or Flash drive etc. anything not G: Macrium Reflect Free is a good one….

2. Remove the “G”….. Then using “disk management” make sure that your main drive set to “active” and that you can boot from it, without the “G” connected.

3. See whats up with the Recycle bin without G:

4. If all is well i would reconnect G: and remove that boot file and anything else that i didn’t want …If it shows up as Active again with both drives connected, i would then set the primary (disk 0) as the active Hard Drive.:cheers: Regards Fred

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Sounds very good, Fred. perhaps a shortcut – remove g: and test the recycle bin. if the problem goes away, we have the culprit. if not, maybe time to reinstall the o/s from d: (with guidance – ive never done that before!)

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Just a thought on your original question: Many defrag programs have a setting that will cause it to automatically do a disk cleanup before it does the defrag. Check it out

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interesting, but no defrag software has been active, afaik. and in this case the defrag would have to run every few hours, and be set to erase the entire recycle bin… seems unlikely, but i will hunt for anythings which might be defragging. closer to fragging, i think, in this case.

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I have also had this same problem for some time and have been following this discussion hoping for a simple solution as I am not very computer savvy. Most of the suggestions offered seemed too complicated for me to attempt except for the last suggestion by Swampster. I have had System Mechanic Installed on my PC which I have been happy with but I wasn’t sure if my problem started with the installation of this programme. Well, I deleted System Mechanic today and put a number of photos in my Recycle Bin. When I had a look in the bin about six hours later, they are all still there so it looks like the removal of my clean up programme has solved my problem. I will have to get onto iolo to find out how I can use System Mechanic without recycle bin automatically deleting it contents. Thanks Swampster.

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Swampster, i’m glad it worked for you. I also had disabled mechanic, but after a number of hours my recycle bin emptied itself. Hope you don’t have any future PC problems.
best,

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It’s now over 24 hours since I uninstalled System Mechanic and all the files I have since moved into the Recycle Bin are still there. They used to disappear automatically within a hour or so before. I have reported the matter to tech. support at System Mechanic to find the reason. Will keep you informed.

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The normal operation of the recycle bin is that until you reach the selected size limit of the recycle bin, all files you move there will stay there unless you manually delete them.

If one of the properties of System Mechanic was automatically deleting files sent to recycle, and you uninstalled System Mechanic, then the recycle bin should return to it’s default behavior, which is as I just described.

It sounds as though your system is doing exactly as it was designed to do. It does not sound as though there is any problem in your system that System Mechanic techs will be able to solve since it appears to be working properly.

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I suspect that System Mechanic had its own hidden “recycle bin” similar to the one Norton had in its old Norton Utilities. It used to drive me nuts when Windows would report the disk as full and Windows explorer showed a small number of files used until I discovered the PC had Norton’s recycler that was part of Norton Undelete. Emptying it restored disk space.

Jerry

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well, gang, thanks to everybody above. problem solved. iolo’s default setting is to regularly delete everything from the recycle bin. if you dont want that to happen, you have to go into the detailed line by line settings and explicitly uncheck a detault setting. they seem to think that is the right way for the system to run; i believe it is totally bass ackwards. i have run across similar things before – and it is infuriating. thank you again, everybody. now the only ‘problem’ is that olio has defaults that should never be preset as currently configured.

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Spot on bruce-human. It appears that my issue was the same as yours with iolo’s System Mechanic clutter setting. I have reinstalled System Mechanic and tried it out and can confirm that that was the problem. I have now set it so that the recycle bin will empty when I want to empty it. You were on the right track jwitalka and this was confirmed by the System Mechanic tech. support who replied to my to my email within twenty four hours. I was impressed with that. My thanks to everyone also.

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Gang, we have just relearned for the umpteenth time the power of mutual support. Thank you, world wide web, for everything, and thank you, Windows Secrets, for hosting this discussion.

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Running Win 7 Pro on 64-bit, SP 1. Gosh, I at least feel better to know that I’m not the only person that System Mechanic has screwed up;). I bought SM from a reputable web site in good faith, left it on my desk for a couple of wks. before installing. I finally installed it, checked all settings which seemed normal, and ran it–most everything went bonkers. Desktop icons disappeared, all Taskbar icons were gone, no programs would load (Word, Excel, or WE). However, the machine would boot up normally, Firefox showed my homepage, nothing else, and the Recycle Bin constantly emptied. I quickly uninstalled SM, ran CCleaner, TuneUp Utilities 2013, and jv16 PowerTools 2012–now, no sign of SM anywhere on my computer. However, the Recycle Bin continues to empty automatically (this is my problem). In addition to the above, I’m running MS Malicious Software Removal Tool V4.14, and ESET Smart Security 6. I know some of these empty the Recycle Bin when set to do so, but I’ve checked everything and cannot find a reason for the RB to automatically empty. Incidentally, SM will not refund because I’m over their 30 day limit. The RB is a great safety tool for me and I’ll appreciate any advice or help with keeping it full. Thanks to System Restore, I’m up and running again. Best regards.

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sorry for your troubles, too. based on everything you’ve said, all i can think of is to check the rb’s own setting – there is an option to delete stuff rather than storing it. second, i’d suggest booting into safe mode and see what happens; then enable all other software one app at a time, with your usual check of rb contents. good luck!
an interesting side note – i also recently installed a toshiba canvio 3 tb backup drive. and learned that its default settings exclude “raw” files from my camera, among other things. you have to hunt deep in the menus to change the default. i griped, and they said it was deliberate; this is like saving photos and destroying the negatives. or eliminating the spare tire in a car to make it lighter to save fuel.

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