Hard disk space

  • Thread starter Thread starter abcd
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A

abcd

I have 75GB on hard disk. I have installed Vista,SQL Server, MSDN library.
It shows 28GB is consumed. If I count the total of all the folders it comes
to around 16GB. Where is 11GB?
 
Your apparent lost space is in the same locations that it was with Windows
XP. These are hidden/system files and System Restore files (System Volume
Information).

--


Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!
 
Richard

What is the procedure for viewing the contents of the System Volume
Information folder? Is it true that the default setting is 15% of
volume? Can the default be decreased? If so how?

Setting default disk allocations based on a percentage of volume has
in many quarters for a long time been felt to be a misguided approach.
Are there any better ways for calculating a reasonable allocation? Is
a consensus of opinion on this issue emerging?

abcd please note 15% of 75 gb is 11.25 gb i.e your missing space!

--

Regards.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
I am honestly not an expert on system restore. Since XP came out, I always
turned it off after installing a decent imaging program, whether it be Ghost
or TrueImage. My stored system images have always taken care of any cases
where I have to go back to another point in time, and I can control when the
images are created.

There is no sense of creating an image when the system is in an unknown
state. System Restore knows nothing of the state/stability of your computer.
It just creates a restore point. Now, you go back to that restore point and
you are in an instable condition, one that you may have previously rectified
by further work and adjustments to your system configuration.

System restore just doesn't seem like a good thing for me. I want the
control.

--


Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!
 
Gerry,

There's a DiskPercent entry under
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\SystemRestore\cfg registry
key. It's value is 0x0000000f (15 decimal).

You can try to change it, reboot and see if it'll lower disk space
allocation for System Restore... or break your OS.

Don't forget to post back with results.
 
That would be hexadecimal :-)

Alexander Suhovey said:
Gerry,

There's a DiskPercent entry under
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\SystemRestore\cfg
registry key. It's value is 0x0000000f (15 decimal).

You can try to change it, reboot and see if it'll lower disk space
allocation for System Restore... or break your OS.

Don't forget to post back with results.
Click to expand...
 
Oh, and as for the procedure of viewing SVI folder contents, it is just a
matter of gining yourself NTFS permissions on the folder since default is
full access for SYSTEM account only. Change Windows Explorer settings to
show system and hidden files, then open SVI folder properties and go to
Security tab. Rest should be obvious.

I doubt you will see anything interesting there however. And don't forget to
change permissions back when you finish. Access restrictions are there for
purpose.
 
I mean, it translates to decimal 15. Bad wording as usual. Thanks for
pointing that out.
 
Alexander

Surely there is a more user friendly interface than directly editing
the Registry? There was one in Windows XP!

Are you accepting the 15% default?


--

Regards.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
Richard

Well Richard there are not many MVPs who support Symantec software.
Is it just Ghost?

I have some sympathy with your views regarding System Restore in that
it should only monitor the system drive but does not. Removable drives
often cause grief for users. However, doesn't Ghost create enormous
hidden folders? Users can suddenly find themself running out of disk
space and have no idea why!

--

Regards.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
Me? Well, yes. Never changed defaults in XP too. There was UI to control
space allocation but apparently it was removed in Vista.
 
Thanks Alexander

That seems similar to Windows XP Professional. They made life more
difficult if you had Windows XP Home Edition! Are there any
distinctions in controlling access between Vista Editions?

What could be of interest within a System Volume Information folder is
that you can see the variations in size and number of restore points
kept. This could be helpful when assessing how much space it is
reasonable to allocate to System Restore. If Vista is supposed to be
more stable than XP why have Microsoft increased the default
allocation from 12% to 15%?


--

Regards.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
Alexander

Why don't Microsoft learn from their mistakes? Is System Restore in
Vista still monitoring removable drives?


--

Regards.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
I have 75GB on hard disk. I have installed Vista,SQL Server, MSDN library.
It shows 28GB is consumed. If I count the total of all the folders it comes
to around 16GB. Where is 11GB?
Click to expand...
System Restore and Shadow copies.
 
That may work, but I don't speak hexadecimal so ...

You can use the "vssadmin" command from an elevated cmd prompt to change the
amount of disk space system restore and shadow storage use. See:

http://blogs.technet.com/filecab/ar...used-for-restore-points-in-windows-vista.aspx

for more than you probably want to know. I used the "vssadmin resize
shadowstorage" command to limit the space to 10GB on my 320GB boot drive.
That seems adequate, at least for my purposes.
 
By default, Vista system restore is NOT monitoring removable drives (e.g.,
USB had drives) on my 2 computers. I'm a little less clear what the heck
shadow copy is doing ("vssadmin list shadows" will let you know).
 
Richard

What is the procedure for viewing the contents of the System Volume
Information folder? Is it true that the default setting is 15% of volume?
Can the default be decreased? If so how?
Click to expand...

System restore in Vista is different. It's not just retore points but also
shadow copies of files so you can replace files with previous versions. To
adjust the amount of space allocated to system restore and shadow copies
plus other functionality run the command line tool vssadmin from an elevated
command prompt. Use /? to see all the options.
 
The newer versions after they bought out PowerQuest, that image the active
OS do in fact have large IO and file requirements. Older versions that ran
after booting to DOS did not.
 
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