Vanished free space? o.O
 

I have a strange problem. I was clearing up my unused files and clutter from my compy and I noticed I have a huge loss of free space on my drive C:\

My C: partition is 10 Gb. I highlighted all the files and the contents on the drive only weigh 6 Gb, but I only have 200 megs of free space according to explorer.

I'm not very good at math, but even I know that 10 - 6 != 0.2

Here be photographic evidence (I captioned it for your non-hungarian folks):
http://img353.imageshack.us/img353/963/spacevt3.png

Apparently, I lost 4 gigs of free space somehow. Before you say:

- I emptied the recycle bin
- I cleared clutter (temp, internet junk...etc)
- No hidden files, I highlited them all
- I don't use any drivespace programs
- I don't have any third party disc management progs installed

I have Norton System Works however, but I don't use it's disk features, never have. Oh, the Norton Protected Recycle bin is empty too.

I really need that 4 gigs of space. Any ideas?:(

Chkdsk C: /f

Thanks, but I tried that already, didn't help.

However, I managed to get back 2 gigs of that lost 4. I turned off the hibernation option in power saving. Also, I moved the pagefile (virtual memory) to the other partition, but that didn't do anything. On the virtual memory management screen it shows that the pagefile has been moved to the D:\ partition, but in TC I still see the pagefile on the C: and none on the D... curious...

EDIT: I was sooo wrong. I was looking at the wrong drive, the H. The D partition has the pagefile, so I manually deleted the one from the C:, not I have 3.9 gigs of free space. Still need to snoop a little for system files.

I really hope this maneuver won't crash my system...

Did you reboot after moving the page file?

Also,did you check the System Restore function?

try start->run Restore/rstrui.exe .. check if it's enabled, probably yes. it takes quite a space

Thanks! The system restore function I need, saved my life a few times so it stays. Other than that I killed everything that takes up space, so I'm good for the time being.

Again, thx for the tipz!

Not arguing about it.
Do you know, however, that Windows keeps a LOT of OLD restore points? :wacko:
You might want to leave only the few most recent ones and axe the rest.
Saves a lot of HDD space, that.

I have none in my laptop. I can't afford it on only 27 gB on HDD space. :oh:

Amazing!!! I have the exact same problem lately. i used to have plenty of disk space now it's 200-300MB. WTF?!

just last week i cleared up some space by uninstalling some programme i never used and it read 800MB free. seem ok bu tnow it's back to 200MB-300mb what is going on?

i moved restore points to other disk and reduced them. the recycle bin i already small.

windows take up 3.6 GB of space of which pagefile.sys takes up 1 gb? How do i move the pagefile.sys to another disk? and even if i move that 1gb would this space be filled up ? just like the 500 MB that somehow dissapeared. would defragging help? can it even be done with such low disk space? Honestly i dont' know what the hell MS is doing. before that disk always had a little over 1GB free space. now suddenly withouth any new programmes installed it has only 200 or 340. depends how long you wait for it when it starts up.

I have other disks with plenty of space but this system disk has a sudden problem of running out of memorry. but i am not sure if adding a partition from another disk would be possible or even a good thing to do (since they would be phisically separated).

System properties - advanced - virtual memory. You can change the size of the pagefile and the disk it resides on.

Defragging wouldn't.
Not with M$hit defragger. But with a different program? Sure. The only difference would be how fast and efficient the process will be.
Manually clear contents of the Temp and Temporary Internet Files directories.

I think there's also some uninstallation information stored with some of the system patches, and deleting that can save you even more space. Never done it, though.

You could perhaps move your entire "My Documents" directory to a different drive? It requires editing the registry keys, but works if you provide the correct paths.

i'll try to move page file. i dont' think i can resize it much unless i want it to affect the WinXP (apparently there are some consequences).

edit: i still can not find where to change the location of the pagefile. i can see only the size can be changed. but i also see other disks there and they do not have any pagefile on them. do i simply reduce the C one to 0 and increase it on one of the disks?

While my documents take up only 20 MB so that's not it.

I never worry about System Restore. While it's good for driver failures, etc. malware often infiltrates and infects it along with the rest of the system. The most common antivirus solutions still can't keep up with the latest malware out there for Windows. Windows itself can at times appear to be its own enemy. Chewing up hard drive space, corrupting its registry, etc.

In my humble opinion, the best practice is to keep very recent backups of your important data.

When your computer goes haywire, wipe the hard drive and reinstall the OS. If you're feeling particularly crafty, perform a base install with all the latest updates and applications you know you'll be using. Then use a ghosting program such as g4l (Ghost for Linux) to create a baseline image that can be reinstalled next time the computer goes crappy.

Exactly so.

try this -

http://windirstat.info/

@gregor

You should also disable the hibernation mode. Just right-click on the desktop -> properties -> screen saver tab, and on the bottom you'll find the power saving menu. Just go to hibernation and uncheck the box.

Note, that in many cases you must delete the hibernation file(hibfil.sys or something similar) and if you move the pagefile to another drive, after reboot, you should delete the old pagefile.sys too, manually.

Those files will not be visible in plain explorer, even with the hidden files turned on, so you'll need Total Commander for that. Hope this helps.

... Or you should be able to use the command prompt.

well i switched the pagefile (switched it of on C drive and enabled it in one of other partitions with more than enough space left. computer restarted and C had a comfortable 1.4GB free space. but not more than a few seconds because MS automatic updates started up again downloading the SP3 update.

it upsets me the way these work. why can't they first ask you what you want and then start to download. because a week or so i downloaded the CD version of this update to update my wifes computer.

anyway the free space started to slowly dissapear. untill it came down to about 850 MB free. then install started and eventhough the SOB said it is performing cleanup in the end when the computer restarted the disk had only 200 MB free space left. can you believe this?

now i moved that uninstall data (like many others) to backup disk. today i think i will move the softwaredistribution folder.

but i am still puzzled where all the space went. i checked and it seems that i already have system restore points also on another partition. i mean surely the update didn't take up 1.2Gb of space. at leats it shouldnt' according to M$. :wallbash:

Actually, you CAN set windows update so it will ask what to download first. Just get into the live update settings and you'll see. Chose the option to alert you when updates are avalible but don't download, it will be more managable.

on the other hand, yea, SP 3 sucks. I tried to install it, and it says I don't have enough disk space. Well, bummer...

Do the manual install. then you can only go for security updates. Because plenty really large updates are for explorer and media player (i don't use it anyway...). I htink they improved on performance besides from security. at least i think i saw it written somewhere.

Are you using XP or Vista? I know with my Vista, ShadowCopy and the built in backup system seems to use a lot of disk space.

I know Vista has a habit of hiding huge things in C:\Users\<Username>. When all else fails, I just keep looking until I find anything large in there I don't want and hit "delete".

The other option is to buy more storage - 10GB makes me cry slightly! You should even be able to have separate patitons for Temp and Page files - I do on my dad's old PC. Hell, I even bought a 1TB drive for that just so I could stop worrying about it. Being able to dump 70gb of stuff on there and forget about it is a nice feeling :)

One time I did manage to lose 15GB without touching my laptop and freaked - after half an hour I found my sister had gone onto my laptop (me having gone out and left it on) and copy-pasted my entire music collection into my public files - even though it was shared on the network anyway! I was very happy...

do you have "show hidden folders" and "show system folders" option checked?

anyways, try total commander.. very useful