Newbie ??: Does Windows have the equivalent of macOS sparse bundles?

Baeolophus · 14 Jul 2023

I have a PC with Windows on it. The C:-Drive has a capacity of nominally 256 GB:

Newbie ??: Does Windows have the equivalent of macOS sparse bundles?-screenshot-2023-07-14-8.38.04-pm.png

When I get properties on the old Windows folder (I installed a new version of Windows on it from scratch, which moved the old one to C:\Windows.old), I get this:

Newbie ??: Does Windows have the equivalent of macOS sparse bundles?-screenshot-2023-07-14-8.37.39-pm.png

Size: 933 GB, size on disk: 12.0 GB. This is either because of lots of compressed files being in there or something like macOS’s sparse bundle files, which have a nominal size and effective size in the file system.

Is it either one of those two or something else, altogether?

Malneb · 15 Jul 2023

Take a look at this thread that was active just recently, This is a result of cluster size.

What should be the Cluster Size of 18 TB external hard drive

- - - Updated - - -

Actually i miss read this it would be inverted where size on disk would be the discrepancy if that was the case. Tbh i am not actually sure of the top of my head compression maybe but that is a whole lot of compression which i don't think is realistic doing some rough math.

Maybe some sort of overflow or corruption. I am not actually sure tbh of the top of my head.

dalchina · 15 Jul 2023

(I installed a new version of Windows on it from scratch, which moved the old one to C:\Windows.old),

Just for clarification, that must have been an in-place upgrade (if the source you used was a newer build) or in-place upgrade repair install (if the source was the same major build and the same or older minor build number), not 'from scratch'.

Like any 'upgrade' procedure that keeps all progs, accounts, data...

A clean install is a completely different procedure, including the deletion of all existing Windows partitions.

Depends which you wanted to do. You mention 'from scratch' - which suggests you intended to clean install Win 10...

Windows.old is normally automatically deleted after 10 days (default period).

* What problem were you trying to solve?

The numbers you cite sound strange... have you checked your disk?
A 3rd party program SMART check - e.g. Crystal Diskinfo (free) and if ok try
chkdsk c: /scan
from an admin command prompt. Scan only, result on GUI.