wheres my HDD space going?

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Afternoon all

just noticed that Vista thinks ive used up 40GB of my 149GB hard drive.

Bit shocked because when i right click the drive i get the pie chart up, which indeed shoes i have used up 40GB's

but, when i go into the drive and select all the folders (including hidden ones) and view the properties it says im using only 16GB

havnt got any files on my desktop, havnt got any other folders with movies, pictures or music on.

ive pretty much got 2 games installed and msn, my question is, why has it robbed me of 24GB?

the drive is actually 160GB but i understand that when converted would only be 149, which is what i have, so its not that. it was a fresh vista install, no other partitions with other OS lurking on

ideas please?

 

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Are you displaying system files and folders as well?

 

Cache/swap/'virtual memory' is the usual reason for a large chunk being 'missing'.

Harry.

 

And I suspect that the 160G/149G difference is because you aren't measuring it with the same units.

Harry.

 

I would have said that too.

 

Virtual Memory is set to 1533mb, so thats what, a gig n' half

and yes michael system folders are visible

been looking since i made the thread and cant locate my missing space anywhere

 

How much ram do you have?

I ask this because if you don't have much then your system will be using the swap file i.e the hard drive more because virtual memory is a sector on the hard disk that acts like ram when the system does not have enough.

 

What does Disk Manager say about the disk useage?

Harry.

 

Try defragmenting the disk. Delete the files in the temp folder (files there might be set to 0 bytes but for windows still occupy one cluster). The same for cookies and so. Small files just using a few bytes but taking full clusters.

 

Also remember there is a partition on there too.

 

Another thought - there are areas in the directory tree that *don't* show up in Explorer, even when you set it to show system and hidden files.

From memory (I don't have the reference to hand) these include things like the roll-back areas.

Harry.

 

Have you looked at each folder individually? How much is the Windows folder itself using?

 

thats a good idea, how about switching the rollback off that may free up some space.

BTW 1533 isn't 1.5 Gig but near enough, my comps virtual memory is set to the same, like I said before How much ram have you got this when Virtual memory comes into play.

 

How about system restore? do you have that enabled?

 

Checked system restore, it is turned on, but doesnt go back that far, only to the 31st of last month, so 10 days, wouldnt have thought that would take up THAT much space? never did on XP that went back months anyway

GBL, i have a gig of ram in there.

Michael, the windows folder is using 7.7gig (including hidden and system files)

did disk cleanup earlier, only found 50Mb worth of crap

Will defrag it later on tonight when im not using it, cant see there being too much out of place or useless clusters as its only been running for about 2 weeks from a fresh install, but worth a try

will report back later or in the morning:hhhmmm

 

Not sure with Vista, but on XP the system restore area can be up to 10% of the hard drive total space.

Harry.

 

There's a little freeware app out there somewhere that will give you a folder-by-folder breakdown of sizes. Can't remember the name off the top of my head.

 

Hi not sure if I am right but someone will correct me if I am not.

In regard to System restore and Recycle bin, it is not the amount of data stored in them it is the fact that there size is reserved on your hard drive. So even if they are both empty they will still be using disk space.

Not sure on the default size of Recycle bin but System restore is 12% on XP

Not sure if this is any help to you or even if it is correct.

Hope you track down your missing space.

By the way how are you finding Vista? We have some clients moving over to it so having to learn.

Regards

 

its about 10% as far as I know, but yeah you were not wrong about them both using space.

 

this one?