Hi, I was just having a bit of a cleanup because I've started to notice I'm running low on Hard Drive space. And as I was deleting files, I noticed I don't know some of my Hard Disk is haha!
As strange as it sounds I have taken a screenshot of the numbers, I'm just wondering is they seem at all strange. I really can't imagine another folder which is larger than 5GB that is not in these screenshots.

http://img50.imageshack.us/img50/9671/strange.png

Here is a written run down of the figures:
Total Hard Drive Sapce: 244GB
Used: 210GB
My Documents: 85GB
Music: 9GB
Pictures: 2GB
Windows Folder: 15GB
Program Files: 40GB

TOTAL ~ 150GB ....I'm missing around 60GB, does this make sense? Am I being a complete noob, haha thank you for putting up with my incompetence!

The lost space is most probably your System Restore,

You can turn it off to get the space back then create a new restore point,

Steps to turn off System Restore

1. Click Start, right-click My Computer, and then click Properties.
2. In the System Properties dialog box, click the System Restore tab. {Protection for Vista}
3. Click to select the Turn off System Restore check box. Or, click to select the Turn off System Restore on all drives check box. {unpick The drive you want to turn off}
4. Click OK.
5. When you receive the following message, click Yes to confirm that you want to turn off System Restore:
You have chosen to turn off System Restore. If you continue, all existing restore points will be deleted, and you will not be able to track or undo changes to your computer.
Do you want to turn off System Restore?After a few moments, the System Properties dialog box closes.

Steps to turn on System Restore

1. Click Start, right-click My Computer, and then click Properties.
2. In the System Properties dialog box, click the System Restore tab. {Protection for Vista}
3. Click to clear the Turn off System Restore check box. Or, click the Turn off System Restore on all drives check box.
4. Click OK.
After a few moments, the System Properties dialog box closes.

There are some programs you can use to 'see' all the disk space used.

WinDirStat and SpaceSniffer to name a few. Run these and see if the spaces add up?

There are options on both of these, make sure you enable the display of FREE SPACE and UNKNOWN...

Speaking of UNKNOWN, I has a situation with Norton 360 V2 where it literally ate my diskspace up. I could NOT find it if it weren't for these programs that show UNKNOWN space. Norton has a 'very' hidden cache file that is not seen by Windows. As I ran the system there was a bug that allowed the file to GROW incrementally. Working with Symantec we finally traced it to XP PRO SP2 and BOOTVIS. Something in BOOTVIS triggered Norton to grow the file and NOT release the space ever, at least not until the next boot.

You can check the SYSTEM RESTORE space on the individual drive ICON and reduce or eliminate that if you want and feel it is taking up too much space? The default I think is 15%, don't recall for sure.

Irv S.

Edit by Member. Bad idea on link. Should have thought. :)