Question about hard drive usage in Windows Vista Ultimate

Hi, I recently upgraded OS from Windows XP Pro to Windows Vista Ultimate 32bit. (64bit had too much issues w/ driver compatibility)
Okay here is the issue
I have 120GB hard driver and I set my partitions C as 37.6GB and rest as D.

Strange thing is that it shows 25.7GB used and I check my Program Files and Windows folder, and only 15 GB was used. I have my documents at D drive so it shouldn't be a problem.

Does any of you guys know the problem?

I already disabled Restore and only enabled Hibernate.

Thank You.

 

Recycle bin takes 10% space as default I think. Can change that by going to recycle bin properties.

How big is the Documents and Settings folder?

 

i have my documents folder in separated partition due to the fact if format my lappy pretty often!!

10% should be only 3.76gb...

n e body ?

 

Try this:
http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file/fid,23075-order,1-page,1-c,alldownloads/description.html

 

My usage is similar. In Windows Explorer, I can see about 11GB of storage yet my C: drive shows 20GB used.

The unaccounted space is taken by System Restore, Page File, and Recycle Bin.

My C: partition has 30GB. When I first installed Vista and saw that I was already using 20GB I was a lilttle worried, but after two months I have found that I am not using any more space than when I started. I use a D: partition for all of my files and documents, so I feel pretty confident that my 30GB C: partition will be plenty for Vista and Programs.

 

Vista like XP has multip use of disk space. Some are reserved for power modes, recycle, paging files and restore files and remember the HD also uses buffers for the actual disk..usually 8mb. Once you have Vista intalled on the main partition, you can install programs on your partitioned drive. So make C: exlusive to Vista and other programs/files on D: drive.

You can tweak the paging and restore files to use less disk space but not too much as not to decrease it's performance. If you have a 2gb memory Vista will use up to 3gb of space as needed for paging file. In my case it never uses more than 500mb. For Restore Points it can take 15 percent of disk space.

 

thank you guys... i think i am just gonna have to live w/ it!

 

This is one of the things we all need to get used to as technology gets better and cheaper. Vista uses over 1GB of RAM in a 2GB system because it's there and it's available, nothing wrong with that. Likewise it uses a bigger footprint on your hard drive because storage is getting larger and cheaper every year. If you have a low-end PC with a 1.6 GHz processor and a 30GB hard drive, then yes maybe XP is the right OS for you and you have reason to ask "where is my 1 GB of space?". When it comes to Vista , I think the assumptuion is your hard drive is a bit bigger, your PC is more modern, and 10GB of usage for System functions isn't that big a deal.

 

System restore on my hard drive can use up to 12GB, when I have no trouble with the system I turn it off and turn it on again and get my 12GB back.

 

Did you make a clean install? or you just upgraded from xp pro using vista upgrade disk? if you did the latter chances are all your xp files have not yet been deleted. this is what happened to me before when the disk usage on my OS drive is too big only to find out that my xp files have not been deleted. so i just deleted all my xp files and viola i gain a lot of disk space prob 10 gigs.

 

My Windows folder shows 8.75 GB size on hard disk. My windows.old folder shows 13 GB of size on hard disk. Add that, that's already 21.75 GB. My HD is 100 gb. But whenever I go to Computer, it shows that my Local Disk C: is only 67.6 GB.
100 GB minus 67.6 GB = 32.4 GB.

My installed programs total only 1.54 GB.

Why do I only have 67.6 GB???? Right now, I have 26.1 GB free space out of that 67.6 GB. My question is: What do I only have 67.6 GB? THat seems really low. And another question, I dont understand why I only have 26.1 GB free left of the 67.6 GB. That means I already used up 41.5 GB. I dont store any pictures except for those already in Vista. I dont have music, songs, videos, documents. Nothing at all. Where's the rest of the 67.6 GB HD???