http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/ How-To Geek Forums Topic: Losing HarD DrivE SpacE!!! en Sun, 08 Nov 2009 11:31:27 +0000 http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/topic/losing-hard-drive-space#post-5213 Wed, 19 Dec 2007 03:21:58 +0000 whs 5213@http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/ <p>Hi dM, Just another news: I just ran the disc defragmentation on my C-disc. It gave me 42GB back. My available space jumped from 222GB to 264GB. Not that I need it - I did that for another reason. Maybe you want to try that too. I did not think it would make such a big difference. I hope it did not chop half my system out - but it seems to still be running ok. The Defrag you find under Start &gt; AllPrograms &gt; Accessories &gt; System Tools &gt; Disc Defrag.. </p> http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/topic/losing-hard-drive-space#post-5212 Tue, 18 Dec 2007 23:15:42 +0000 whs 5212@http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/ <p>dM, Looks like you are in good shape now. I would not worry too much about disc space. On my 3 Vista PC's I experienced a similar situation. In the beginning it grabs a lot of space - but then after a while it settles down. On my last system ( 4 weeks old with a 320GB sata) I am now sitting at 222GB on the C-disc and that has not changed in 2 weeks. The first 2 weeks though it was wild. Vista is a resource monger but then the stuff is so cheap these days. Suggest you get an external disc for backups and non-essentials. Just bought a 250GB at Office Depot for $68. This gives you more breathing space and more security with the backups on a different drive. </p> http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/topic/losing-hard-drive-space#post-5207 Tue, 18 Dec 2007 20:35:15 +0000 dM 5207@http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/ <p>tnx a lot again, i appreciate it, my shadowstorage was set at 55 GB !!! now i changed it to 10 GB at least and it was a success, i regained 40+ GB when i disabled the system restore and then re-enabled it again. </p> http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/topic/losing-hard-drive-space#post-5189 Tue, 18 Dec 2007 07:51:36 +0000 whs 5189@http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/ <p>Sorry dM I forgot: After you typed the commands you have to press ENTER </p> http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/topic/losing-hard-drive-space#post-5188 Tue, 18 Dec 2007 07:40:28 +0000 whs 5188@http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/ <p>dM, just saw your problem. Suggest you check your shadowstorage (remember: 1 word). For that you go to START&gt;All Programs&gt;Accessories&gt;Command Prompt. Right click Command Prompt and Open as Administrator. Then you type in: VSSADMIN LIST SHADOWSTORAGE (small or big letters does not matter). It will tell you how much shadowstorage is used and, whats more important, how much is allocated. If this is a very big number, you should reduce it to e.g. 5GB. You do this as follows: Go back into Command Prompt as above and type in VSSADMIN RESIZE SHADOWSTORAGE/ FOR=C:/ ON=C:/ MAXSIZE=5GB. It should prompt you with a success message (both cases).If not, you have a typo. Then check your C disc available space. If, however, your shadowstorage is relatively small at the outset, then this won't help. </p> http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/topic/losing-hard-drive-space#post-5093 Sun, 16 Dec 2007 06:14:50 +0000 dM 5093@http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/ <p>pls i need a specific step by step solution if possible </p> http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/topic/losing-hard-drive-space#post-5083 Sat, 15 Dec 2007 20:18:55 +0000 michael 5083@http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/ <p>Turn off system restore<br /> Disk Cleanup (both tabs)</p> <p>--<br /> Mike </p> http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/topic/losing-hard-drive-space#post-5074 Sat, 15 Dec 2007 08:13:16 +0000 dM 5074@http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/ <p>i recently bought my desktop computer around thanksgiving its an AMD Athlon 64 x2 Dual Core 5600+ 2.8 Ghz, i'm having quite confusions about what's happening in my computer, pretty much its annoying me now that i'm losing hard drive space without even downloading loads of files or some sort of videos or mp3 in my computer. my comp supposedly have 400 GB but when i got it out of the box it showed around 331 GB of free space out of 363 GB, although the capacity is around 390GB, notice i know why it says 363 GB or whatever, the main problem is after i got everything fixed "changed/disabled non sense startups" i downloaded my game Counter Strike which is around 1GB+ no more than 1.3GB pretty sure about that... but when i looked at my 331GB remaining space it said i only have 325 now!! then i downloaded yahoo messenger which is only MEGS.. then i looked at my HD space only 323GB left... then i downloaded mp3 files which are about 120MB in size, i lost another 2GB... then i downloaded ragnarok online which is about 2GB now my HD space is only 316GB... so i got pissed why i lost such great amount of space without even installing that much of it.. then i ran disk cleanup it says there was something unchecked 89.4GB , so i checked that i'll gain 89.4 GB of space.. on the label it says something like (files used for error reporting and solution checking) <a href='http://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q117/dmxmdz/SystemError-2.jpg' rel="nofollow">http://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q117/dmxmdz/SystemError-2.jpg</a> so i asked on yahoo answers if its ok to clean this files they told me that nothing will happen if i delete that so i was like alright i might gain my space back probably on cleaning this up, so i did a cleanup, which was one of the worst day of my life i felt so angry, all my files were deleted including my Counter Strike, mp3's, YM, Ragnaork Online, even my nvidia adapter wont even work anymore, as if my computer cleaned thoroughly, it wont open my pictures , my music folder . whatever, so i did a system restore or whatever, this is last hope i guess, so i was like alright i'm gonna restore it from the beginning where nothing was installed that day i got it out from the box... guess what? i got my computer working fine again, although my HD space remained 316GB ... without the things i installed mentioned earlier.. so i was like cursing badly, there we go i thought it was hopeless to deal with this crap every single day, so i downloaed counter strike again.. now from 316 GB it went to 310GB, i didnt bother intalling YM anymore neither Ragnaork Online Game, then my computer had 2 windows or microsoft update which was around 28MB, then i lost another 4 GB of space (306GB) , then my counter stike game had an update which is probably like 4MB, i lost another 4GB , now overall i got 302 GB of space without downloading anything besides counter strike and the 100MB total of mp3's. i know it took u about 5 mins reading my story/essay lol but if you finished reading this you guys probably have an idea why i'm so stressed out as of now, i'm not even happy with this new comp i have cuz of all this crap i'm going through, i just told myself i'm probably left with 100Gb of free space after a month without even downloading anything besided windows updates. so if anyone know what the hell this problem is and know a quick or simple solution for this pls tell me asap before i throw this comp literally and get an xp instead.</p> <p>heres a link of the full spec of my comp<br /> <a href='http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/HP-Pavilion-Desktop-PC-A6230N/sem/rpsm/oid/192789/catOid/-12962/rpem/ccd/productDetail.do#prodspecs' rel="nofollow" rel="nofollow">http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/HP-Pavilion-Desktop-PC-A6230N/sem/rpsm/oid/192789/catOid/-12962/rpem/ccd/productDetail.do#prodspecs</a> </p>