Where did my HDD space go?

Message

gongo · #1 Post by **gongo** » Fri Jul 13, 2007 10:08 am

ok so I have 100gigs. 88 when the x61t came to me. I've installed itunes, ventrilo, mozilla, and various small applications. I have about 20 gigs of movies/music on my computer now. I have 2 gigs of space left.... wtf?

#2 Post by **jdhurst** » Fri Jul 13, 2007 10:42 am

Likely you are letting backup and restore run and it is saving the whole machine. Otherwise, it doesn't make any sense at all. The little bit you describe can't eat a whole drive. ... JDH

ptantra · #3 Post by **ptantra** » Fri Jul 13, 2007 11:21 am

gongo wrote:ok so I have 100gigs. 88 when the x61t came to me. I've installed itunes, ventrilo, mozilla, and various small applications. I have about 20 gigs of movies/music on my computer now. I have 2 gigs of space left.... wtf?

two possible culprits, how much space is the recycle bin and the temporary internet files folder taking?

#4 Post by **jdhurst** » Fri Jul 13, 2007 11:40 am

Temporary internet files could never eat 80 Gb (max is somewhere around 1 Gb and IE7 constrains that even more).

The Recycle Bin is not very big. If I try to delete a 6 Gb file, the recycle won't accomodate it. I must delete completely (shift-Del).

Even full backups can't account for all this space. There is something else going on that the OP has not made us aware of. I have much more stuff than originally stated in this thread, and I still have 20 Gb free of a 60Gb disk.
... JDH

gongo · #5 Post by **gongo** » Fri Jul 13, 2007 11:53 am

I empty my recycle bin all the time. I download all of my movies/mp3's to 1 folder which is 22.3 gigs. I havent even installed MS Office yet. Like I said... where the hell is my HDD space? I'm not even aware of the backup running, bu i guess it makes sense if it basically doubled my downloads. How do I turn this thing off then?

proaudioguy · #6 Post by **proaudioguy** » Fri Jul 13, 2007 12:36 pm

I let R&R run a backup and it took 27gb. If you start R&R and choose DELETE backups, it will show you a list of backups you can delete, and the sizes. See if that helps.

tgrimley · #7 Post by **tgrimley** » Fri Jul 13, 2007 7:23 pm

There are various applications that will let you "visualize" drive space usage. This may help you track down the folders that are using the space, and eventually the source of the files.

#8 Post by **ryengineer** » Fri Jul 13, 2007 9:10 pm

Assuming you're using Vista, this might help in freeing up some space:

1. Start > All Program > ThinkVantage > Rescue and Recovery > View all backups.

It should show you how much space your backup files are consuming. If you like to delete a backup you can do it via:

Rescue and Recovery > Advanced > Delate Back ups.

2. Open My Computer > Right Click on your HDD > Properties > Disk Cleanup > Files from all users > Check every single option in disk cleanup including Hibernation files, if there are any. Do not click Ok yet. Go to "More Options" and click "Clean Up" under "System restore and Shadow copies". Your HDD light would blink for a while depending on how many shadows Vista had been saving. When it disappears, click OK then delete files.

3. Install CCleaner http://www.ccleaner.com/ , their website would tell you instructions on how-to use it.

gongo · #9 Post by **gongo** » Mon Jul 16, 2007 2:50 pm

ryengineer wrote:Assuming you're using Vista, this might help in freeing up some space:

1. Start > All Program > ThinkVantage > Rescue and Recovery > View all backups.

It should show you how much space your backup files are consuming. If you like to delete a backup you can do it via:

Rescue and Recovery > Advanced > Delate Back ups.

2. Open My Computer > Right Click on your HDD > Properties > Disk Cleanup > Files from all users > Check every single option in disk cleanup including Hibernation files, if there are any. Do not click Ok yet. Go to "More Options" and click "Clean Up" under "System restore and Shadow copies". Your HDD light would blink for a while depending on how many shadows Vista had been saving. When it disappears, click OK then delete files.

3. Install CCleaner http://www.ccleaner.com/ , their website would tell you instructions on how-to use it.

thanks you.. a quick check on my backups yielded 36 gigs for 3 back ups. I deleted 2 and left the "base" backup. what are "shadows" that you refer to? is that like a vista flash back up?

tinman1412 · #10 Post by **tinman1412** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 5:36 pm

This happened to me as well. It ate up 15GB of my HDD, but when I went to Rescue Recovery to delete the backup, it says there are no backups. What's going on. I think the backup process didn't finish, therefore it doesn't show up, but it still took away my 15GB. What do I do now?

kotaro77 · #11 Post by **kotaro77** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 11:29 pm

well i am missing a big chunk of disk space aswell. i have an 80gb drive, 69 is showing up in the partition. of that i have only 40gb.

My windows file is 7.8gb. Is that normal under vista business?

I have about 5-7gb of photos and such, but i cannot find the missing space. I have no backups on either windows or lenovo and thus confused.

#12 Post by **ryengineer** » Thu Jul 26, 2007 12:28 am

gongo wrote:what are "shadows" that you refer to? is that like a vista flash back up?

Right Click on your HDD > Properties > Previous Versions.

These are called shadows or simply all the things Windows Vista System Restore has been saving. The number 2 option I mentioned clears up all the shadows except keeping the most latest one.

Some users also like to turn off this System Restore feature to save more space since they believe they can do it on their own periodically, which I would strongly recommend against.

Windows takes these backups before and after the installation of any system softwares like drivers and other utilities and turning it off stops it from doing so, automatically; which can even cause problems for users of higer expertise if they forget to take one; unless ofcourse they're using some other backup tools.

#13 Post by **ryengineer** » Thu Jul 26, 2007 7:44 am

tinman1412 wrote:This happened to me as well. It ate up 15GB of my HDD, but when I went to Rescue Recovery to delete the backup, it says there are no backups. What's going on. I think the backup process didn't finish, therefore it doesn't show up, but it still took away my 15GB. What do I do now?

See this.

tinman1412 · #14 Post by **tinman1412** » Thu Jul 26, 2007 11:12 am

can someone tell me where I can turn this feature off in Rescue Recovery?. I'm guessing it's running on a schedule of some sort.

#15 Post by **ryengineer** » Thu Jul 26, 2007 11:36 am

tinman1412 wrote:can someone tell me where I can turn this feature off in Rescue Recovery?. I'm guessing it's running on a schedule of some sort.

Start > All Program > ThinkVantage > Rescue and Recovery > Manage Settings > Set schedule and preferences > uncheck schedule your backups.

tinman1412 · #16 Post by **tinman1412** » Sat Jul 28, 2007 4:31 pm

Ok, I've disabled the RR backup process. My hard drive continues to decrease in size everytime i check it. I lose a gig here and there. Is there anything else I need to turn off. Is there some type of incremental backup going on behind the scenes. Should I just do a custom restore and get rid of the Rescue Recovery piece from ThinkVantage?. Please advise

#17 Post by **ryengineer** » Sat Jul 28, 2007 6:48 pm

tinman1412 wrote:Ok, I've disabled the RR backup process. My hard drive continues to decrease in size everytime i check it. I lose a gig here and there. Is there anything else I need to turn off. ......snip

It's the Windows System Restore that's taking up your HDD space. As I said before, I would strongly recommend against disabling it, but if you really want to then follow these steps:

Start > Right Click My Computer > Properties > Advanced System Settings > System Protection > Uncheck the check boxes listed beside your HDD > Click OK.

Keep in mind, Windows won't be creating any automatic backups anymore so you should create system restore points occasionally on your own, unless you've another backup system software.

OR if you decide not to disable System restore, you can delete unnecessary restore points at the end of the day by following below:

Open My Computer > Right Click on your HDD > Properties > Disk Cleanup > Files from all users > Check every single option in disk cleanup including Hibernation files, if there are any. Do not click Ok yet. Go to "More Options" and click "Clean Up" under "System restore and Shadow copies". Your HDD light would blink for a while depending on how many shadows Vista had been saving. When it disappears, click OK then delete files.

SHoTTa35 · #18 Post by **SHoTTa35** » Sat Jul 28, 2007 7:04 pm

kotaro77 wrote:well i am missing a big chunk of disk space aswell. i have an 80gb drive, 69 is showing up in the partition. of that i have only 40gb.

My windows file is 7.8gb. Is that normal under vista business?

I have about 5-7gb of photos and such, but i cannot find the missing space. I have no backups on either windows or lenovo and thus confused.

Yes the Vista folder uses up that much. There are about 4GB of drivers in there so people can stop moaning that they have to download drivers all the time.

How much RAM you have also should be taken into account. You're using 29GB total it seems. So if you have 2GB of RAM then you likely will have a 2GB hiberfile and a 2GB pagefile. but that still doesn't add up so hmmm

Usually i check the properties of all the folders on the drive in question then add them up. If my "users" folder is 20GB then i know it's either on my desktop or when i downloaded some ISOs in IE that is still in the temp folder.

Where did my HDD space go?

Where did my HDD space go?

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