Disk Usage

I was just browsing through things now and noticed i have 18.4 gb free of 68.3 gb on my one partition that has windows on it. thats 49.9 gb used and i cant fig out how. my users folder which has my music, pics and everything else in is 18 gb and then the windows folder is 8.25 gb. and all the other folders that i can tell are only in the mb range. where did the other roughly 25 gb go? maybe im not seeing a folder or something this doesnt seem right. any ideas? am i just stupid? and program files folder is about 3.5 gb.

 

Try running CCleaner.
I got 1.3gb more space after it.

 

i run it about once a month just to tidy things up. i just ran it and it deleted 243 mb. any other ideas?

 

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

run it and it will show you quite quickly where everything went

you might also consider running a chkdsk on the volume as some free space may be marked as in use

 

If you have vista, then shadowcopy is using up space. You have to disable windows restore to get it back if you want.

 

wow windows restore was using over 10 gb. still leaves some space unaccounted for but i got some back. ill try that progrom later, thanks gerryf19. is is bad to leave restore off? if its better to leave it on i will but thats alot of disk space in my opinion.

 

I have had the same problem on one of the partitions. I haven't been able to find out what the problem is. The free disk space keeps decreasing day by day though it seems to be unused.
The solution, after I defragment the drive with a defragmenter (O&O), the space comes back. Weird, huh?

 

you can set up restore to use less space.

 

how do i do that? ive been looking around at settings and stuff but havent seen anything to change how much space it uses.

 

command line only

vssadmin resize shadowstorage /on=[OnVolumeSpec:] /for=[ForVolumeSpec:] /maxsize=[MaxSizeSpec]

Where
OnVolumeSpec: is the drive letter, for examaple C
ForVolumeSpec: is the drive letter, for example C
MaxSizeSpec: is the maximum size you want System Restore to use, example 1GB

So, a command would be
vssadmin resize shadowstorage /On=C: /For=C: /Maxsize=1GB

Please note, when you reduce the size of the space set aside, you will lose system restore points.

I would advise against turning windows restore off completely unless you regularly back up your system--even then, system restore can be a quicker fix than a full restore should something go wrong.

 

i tried to resize it but i got the following error message, "vssadmin is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file" i would like to be able to do this since i do not do complete system backups, just my personal files. id like to have a few restore points around just in case. i do have recovery discs and an os disc but im assuming a windows restore point is much quicker.

 

Depending on what you do it may be better to keep it on. For me i have a 400GB HD so i leave it on just in case i get infected with something nasty via p2p or somehow get a virus another way. If you only do light web surfing on the same sites usually then maybe it's ok to leave it off. Otherwise i'd leave it on and turn it off once in a while then back on to restore the space. Or you could just tell it to use less space like the other dude said but i know there has to be another way to do it so i'll go looking for you.

 

i downloaded spacemonger and i THINK i found where a large chunk of my space went. i noticed a folder called Backup on me C: drive and there is one folder in it with the name "07-04-08 1031PM" and it is 11.3 gb. i did a system restore on this computer one night and if i remember it was april 8 of this year. and many files on my computer say they were created april 9th because i started the restore and didnt finish until after midnight. i noticed all of my user folders are empty in this backup folder (music, pics, etc) because when i did the backup i selected to option to save all my documents during the restore. then when i completed the restore i tracked down my files and put them in there correct folders. is this backup file more than likely from my restore? and in which case could be safely deleted? i looked around the program files folder in this backup folder and nothing matches what has been installed since the backup. i am 90% certain thats what this backup folder is, can anyone confirm this? if so its being deleted.

and if anyone else knows how to shrink the amount of disk space for restore please tell me. i love the idea of windows restore but i like my hard drive space.

 

i finally got the command line to resize how much space system restore will use. does anyone know about the backup folder i found?

 

when you say system restore, you don't mean working with restore points, but an actual repair (called "recovery with automatic data backup) using a manufacturer supplied CD

When available through the recovery disc, that creates a folder as you described with a back up of your data...if there is nothing in there you need, I would say it is safe to delete.

 

when i tried to delete it, it tells me i need admin privileges to do so. i click continue and then ok i think it is.....it acts like it is deleting it but in the end it says it cant and i can click try again or cancel. i had this happen while trying to delete shortcuts and files off of my desktop one day but it eventually let me delete them. what can i do?

 

been doin some looking around....could i not be able to delete this because it contains windows and system files? i found something that said to delete system files in vista you have to take ownership of the file or something? its done with commandline and i dont want to break anything.