Where has all the disk space gone?

[Guest]

I look at the Properties box for my hard drive and it tells me I'm using 15.7 GB. But when I open the drive and look at the sizes of the folders on it, they only total 10.3 GB. Since it's a 20 GB drive, I'm kind of curious about where that unexplained quarter of my disk space has gone. The Properties boxes for those folders also tell me there are about 35,000 files on the disk, and I know there is a little bit of overhead to each file, so is that where the space is being eaten up?

Thanks for the help,
Brooks

 

[DL]

Page file, hidden files/folders.
Run Disk Clean up

I look at the Properties box for my hard drive and it tells me I'm using

15.7 GB. But when I open the drive and look at the sizes of the folders on
it, they only total 10.3 GB. Since it's a 20 GB drive, I'm kind of curious
about where that unexplained quarter of my disk space has gone. The
Properties boxes for those folders also tell me there are about 35,000 files
on the disk, and I know there is a little bit of overhead to each file, so
is that where the space is being eaten up?

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the suggestion. Disk Cleanup shows that only 110 MB can be reclaimed, and there is just one hidden file in the hard disk window -- which is empty. Any other thoughts

Thanks
Brook

----- DL wrote: ----

Page file, hidden files/folders
Run Disk Clean u

I look at the Properties box for my hard drive and it tells me I'm usin

15.7 GB. But when I open the drive and look at the sizes of the folders o
it, they only total 10.3 GB. Since it's a 20 GB drive, I'm kind of curiou
about where that unexplained quarter of my disk space has gone. Th
Properties boxes for those folders also tell me there are about 35,000 file
on the disk, and I know there is a little bit of overhead to each file, s
is that where the space is being eaten up

 

[Hemlock]

Do you use hybernate? - turn it off
do you use system restore? use disk clean up to delete all but one
restore point, if you are comfortable doing that.
Or turn it off if not using it.

How big is your recycle bin?

How big is your swap file?

clean up all the internet cache files.

HTH

Hemlock

 

[Alex Nichol]

I look at the Properties box for my hard drive and it tells me I'm using 15.7 GB. But when I open the drive and look at the sizes of the folders on it, they only total 10.3 GB. Since it's a 20 GB drive, I'm kind of curious about where that unexplained quarter of my disk space has gone.

As a start - Folder Options, View and select to show Hidden and System
Files, and not to Hide Protected mode files. Click Apply, and do your
assessment again.

Things that will now show up are most of the system itself - maybe
1.5GB; the page files and probably hiberfil.sys (needed if you
hibernate) and the System Volume Information folder containing restore
points, which by default may take up to 12% of the drive. All this
together probably accounts for the matter.

I regard it as a good idea to reduce the amount of space allotted to
System Restore - on a 20GB drive it will probably be OK< but is larger
than usually needed. At Control Panel - System - System restore,
highlight the drive, click Settings and move the slider down. 500MB
should be enough for a reasonable number of restore points

 

[roger]

Hi BW,

You might have large files on a System Restore point, try to create
a new one and then go to Start > Run > cleanmgr.exe, go to the more
options tab and check 'delete all system restore points except the
most recent.'

This will erase all your restore points except the one you just made,
first be sure that your computer is functioning OK so you don't need
them!!

You can check the restore points by going to the
'C:\System Volume information' folder, right clicking, going to
properties and checking its size.


Good luck