Deleted raster does not release disk space

[GerickeCook]

I had several large ESRI grid files that I deleted from a folder using ArcCatalog (10.0). It should have released about 70 GB of harddrive space but I saw no change when looking at the disk space properties. I see a couple of related posts like these:
post 1 and post 2

I don't administer SDE databases or use SQL server manager, so I'm unfamiliar with one suggestion posted. As an ArcGIS end user, how can I delete a raster and get my harddrive space back?

[xiannianchen]

From operation system perspective, your deleted files should be still in the Recycle Bin. The regular DELETE will not permanently delete files but move the files to the Recycle Bin.

[GerickeCook]

From operation system perspective, your deleted files should be still in the Recycle Bin. The regular DELETE will not permanently delete files but move the files to the Recycle Bin.

That would be an easy fix if true, but it doesn't work either, unfortunately. I've emptied the recycling bin, run disk cleanup, and disk defragmenter. I've rebooted the machine and anything else I can think of that normally fixes glitchy stuff like this.

I am currently running Windows 7 64-bit, ArcGIS 10.0. I don't want to upgrade to 10.1 yet, because I'm using some code developed for 10.0 for a project. Anyone else have an idea why this is happening?

[RebekahZehnder]

Did you ever figure this out?  I'm experiencing the same issue - deleted rasters in ArcCatalog, but no disk space was released and they did not show up in the Recycle Bin.

Windows 7 Ultimate, ArcGIS 10.1

[Anonymous User]

Sorry to revive this old post. But I am having the same problem here with ArcMap / ArcCatalog 10.3.1. The raster was stored in SDE Geodatabase (SQL Server) previously, and I deleted it from ArcCatalog. It should have released around 50 GB HDD space. The server does not have Recycle bin activated, it is on Windows Server 2012 R2. And I see the .mdf file itself still have that 50GB data (originally it was only around 2GB ). So I assume it was not moved to anywhere (to recycle bin or somewhere).

Please help for solution for this.

[Asrujit_SenGupta]

Did you try to Shrink the Database or the Data\Log files individually? Does that release the space?

Shrink a Database | Microsoft Docs 

Shrink a File | Microsoft Docs 

[Anonymous User]

Hi Asrujit, you are a legend. It works. If you live near my place, I will treat you as many pizza as you want.

[Asrujit_SenGupta]

Great! As many Pizzas as you want...interesting...