June 27th, 2012

How did my hard drive turn into a TARDIS?

Raymond Chen
Raymond Chen

A customer observed that the entry for a network drive looked liked this in My Computer, well, except that there was a network drive icon instead of ASCII art.

O Public (\\server) (S:)
 
 
3.81TB free of 2.5GB

How is it possible for a 2.5GB drive to have 3.81TB free? While there have certainly been examples of Explorer showing confusing values the reason for the strange results was, at least this time, not Explorer’s fault.

This particular network drive actually reported (via Get­Disk­Free­Space­Ex) that it had more free space than drive space. Explorer is dutifully reporting the information it was given, because it doesn’t try to second-guess the file system. If a network drive wants to report that it is a TARDIS, then it’s a TARDIS.

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Old New Thing
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Author

Raymond Chen

Raymond has been involved in the evolution of Windows for more than 30 years. In 2003, he began a Web site known as The Old New Thing which has grown in popularity far beyond his wildest imagination, a development which still gives him the heebie-jeebies. The Web site spawned a book, coincidentally also titled The Old New Thing (Addison Wesley 2007). He occasionally appears on the Windows Dev Docs Twitter account to tell stories which convey no useful information.

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