Hard disk space...........

Hey guys i just recieved my dell xps m1530 it is really sexy but there is a small problem. Capacity of my C drive is 285 GB whr 88 gbis occupied after installng my software and games but when i counted all files and folders it came up to 39 gb so whr has the remaining 49 odd GB vanished. I chked hidden files as well. is it sum used up for media direct or sumthin.
PLS help i need my 49 Gb bak....................

 

For one thing, yuor drive does not have the full 320GB because by default allocation unit size is 4096 which means that every 1 byte takes up 4096 bytes to increase performance.

There are also a lot of other partitions as the C drive and D drive are just two of them. Open up "Disk Management" in Windows Vista control panel and you will see the other two partitions. 2.5Gb for mediadirect and a hidden recovery partition.

 

I use a program called SpaceMonger 1.4 (legacy program, but is a standalone program and is fast) to see all the files that occupy my hard drive.

http://www.sixty-five.cc/download/

Go to this link, go to the "Free Software" tab and scroll down to SpaceMonger 1.4.0.

 

ya i know i wont get full 320 gb but my c drive partition says that it has a capacity of 285 GB and 88GB occupied but i hav checked all folders including hidden they add up to 39 so whr the hell are my 49gb

 

No...then a 4096MB hard drive would only hold 1MB of data!

Hard drive capacity is measured in base 10 on retail boxes, while computers measure in base 2.

Base 10 = Our number system...1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12, etc.
Base 2 = Computer number system...0, 1, 01, 10, 11, 100, 101, 110, 111, etc.

Your 320GB (base 10) is equal to 298.1GB (base 2, or binary). Shave a little off for the media direct and/or restore partitions, and there you go.

 

I think what he's saying is that of the 285 GB available on his C drive (meaning that recovery, MD partitions are ignored), 88GB of files are taking up that drive. That's why I recommended the earlier program to see exactly what is taking up the 88GB of space.

 

You know, if you responded to my PRIVATE MESSAGE two weeks ago I wouldn't have to post it just to get to you to respond to it! I'm glad you took notice this time and replied. You shouldn't ignore PMs.

Yeah, I missed that. My bad.

 

Yes, but I was working on Forte's reply (no offense!).

Just a few things to look at...

If you enabled hibernation, a file is created that is equal to the capacity of your RAM. It does not usually show up when searching files, I think.

The page file also takes up hard drive space, usually around 0.5 to 1.5x the size of your RAM capacity. That means up to 6GB easily, lost!

You do not want to delete either of them, but I wanted to make you aware of them.

ShadowCopy (l ink) is a Vista service that secretly makes backup files of stuff of yours, and can take up to 15% of your hard drive space for System Restore and file backup. Even if you do not have Vista Ultimate or Business (which have the ability to backup individual versions of files with ShadowCopy), all versions of Vista have System Restore thus can still steal up to 15%. You can turn this off if you want, and instead use Norton Ghost or Acronis True Image for backup purposes.

You can safely delete the C:\I386 and C:\Dell folder so long as you have Vista restore DVDs.

 

Sorry, Forte...I'm really behind on PMs. I've been on the forums not so much recently.

I know I needed to reply to you...

 

hey smooth tofu finally sumone understood wat i was sayin. I used ur software it says 194 gb free 68% and 38.6 gb unscaned i.e 13.5% what the...

 

Hi smileysil,

You might try downloading Ubuntu, burning it to a CD, booting from the CD and from within Ubuntu, use the Gparted partition manager to analyze your hard drive.

System > Administration > Partition Manager

 

The unused space is probably going to multiple restore points, assuming you are on the OS which dell installed, without any clean installs/tweaks... The "System Volume Information" folder, which contains the restore point data, is normally inaccessible by the user, unless you change the permissions... Hence the unscanned 39 GB.. Try deleting all but the most recent RP, to gain the space back.. I keep restore turned off anyway...

 

Yeah, I thought about that, but considering he just received his M1530... there shouldnt be so many restore points to take up all that space, especially when the space issue occurred after he installed a few programs... Maybe use Disk Cleanup to get rid of a bunch of temp files that arose as a result of the installations? Right click on your recycling bin to do so.

You might also want to run a Chkdsk to make sure everything is fine and there are no bad sectors on the drive and maybe defragment as well though it might not do you much good.

 

@forte although i just recieved my lappy it was wid my bro for a month pls tell me how to turn OFF system restore. and yes the unscanned part is the "system volume recomendation" folder.

 

Ah ok, that makes sense.

To turn System Protection on or off for a particular disk

1. Open System by clicking the Start button Picture of the Start button, clicking Control Panel, clicking System and Maintenance, and then clicking System.

2. In the left pane, click System Protection. Administrator permission required If you are prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation.

3. To turn off System Protection for a hard disk, clear the check box next to the disk, and then click OK.

 

As far as I can see you still have alot of free space, so I really wouldn't advise disabling System Restore unless you're really running low on space. Remember, free space is wasted space.

 

Yeah, but remember, the more free space you have, the better the performance of your hard drive is. Hard drives decrease in performance as they get filled up. Though System Restore is nice to keep enabled if you have plenty of space in the first place.

 

hey guys thx a ton it actually worked after turnin off system restore thanx all of u.

 

Splendid! Glad we could help.

 

I understand, but with the amount of free space he still has, it wouldn't hurt to keep it on. System restore can be really useful at times.

 

Yeah, thats why I said its just nice to keep on. Kinda like Mediadirect. You might not use it all that often, or at all, but its just nice to have since you've got the space.

 

It boils down to personal preference... I would rather reinstall the OS than let something like system restore mess with the system...

 

Yeah, System Restore does have a little degredation after you use it too much. I used System Restore on a computer a couple of times. First time it ran smoothly, second time it ran smoothly but a tad bit slower, third time it took more time to complete, fourth it took longer, and it gradually increased...

I would say its best to avoid using system restore. The fact that the time it takes for the system restore to run after multiple system restores is not a good thing.