ScanDisk and Backup Report Different Amounts of Free Space

ID: Q181670

The information in this article applies to:

SYMPTOMS

The ScanDisk and Backup tools in Windows 98 may report different amounts of used and free space on a hard disk.


CAUSE

ScanDisk determines free space by multiplying the available clusters by the cluster size. Backup reads the directory entries and adds the file sizes together to determine the amount of space necessary for storing the backup. Because these two methods do not yield the same result, ScanDisk and Backup report different amounts of used and free space.


STATUS

This behavior is by design. 


Keywords          : kbtool win98 
Version           : WINDOWS:
Platform          : WINDOWS 
Issue type        : kbprb

Last Reviewed: January 30, 1999