Where's my hard drive space gone?

C

Chix4mat

Gawd
Joined
Aug 31, 2003
Messages
793
Sorry if I put this in the wrong spot :|

Having a little problem, where I can't figure out where my free HDD space has gone.

space.jpg


Now, in the HDD properties, it says one amount. But when I highlight all the files on the drive, then do a properties, it's different. I have all the sys and hidden files showing.. are they skipped or something.

I do have the HDD partitioned for another OS.. but that's the D drive. Am I missing something? I feel like a noob, hehe.

Sorry if I left out any details.. any recommendations to get my space back would be appreciated. That's if I am actually missing it :)
 
Your page file is using it... Its like RAM... except its what was pushed out of your RAM and onto your harddrive.

Random stuff put onto your harddrive because it was pushed out of the RAM to make room for higher priority stuff. Removed after a reboot(usually.)
 
Oh, and yeah, (as posted above) emptying the recycle bin... Unless your like me, and use Shift+Del when deleting things... (bypasses the recycle bin and completely deletes stuff)

Certain programs also use their own "special" page file, like adobe photoshop...
 
It's the 1024 convertion issue. You don't divide by 1000 to get GB, it's 1024. That means a 80GB HDD shows as ~76. You "lose" 4 GB in the conversion. To double check this open driver manager (right click my computer, manage) and see if there is any unpartitioned space. If there is none, you have all the space available, it's just the 1024 'issue'.
 
i dont think it's the 1024 conversion issue, look at the byte to byte comparison, it's different, there no 1024 issue involved there.

the first thing i would suspect would be file slack, that could account for a bunch of space.
 
<---- has been drinking tonight, too drunk to compare the numbers. ;)

This is odd now that I'm looking closer... All the numbers should be in the same range (1024), since it's using the prop. view.

:confused:
 
Sorry for the late reply.

Aye, the 1024 issue would not have anything to do with it, it wouldn't be such a large difference.

I forgot to mention that the Recycle Bin was empty, as well as the page file. Program I have empties the page file.

I still have no clue really.. almost feel like a format.. although I hate doing that. Maybe even removing my 2nd OS partition off that drive would fix it.. I dunno :|

Thanks for the help :)
 
There are alot of files in windows that are hidden, and im talking a little more elaborate than the hidden checkbox. For example Internet Explorer keeps a database of every site visited on the machine. I doubt thats the only data mining program microsoft has in windows. Deleting these range from reg tweaks to bypassing ntfs security, and really isnt worth the trouble if you ask me.

As for getting your space back a format may be the only way. but dear lord you have a big harddrive and it surprises me that you have it full. I have a 40gb hd and its roughly half full.
 
Lord of Shadows said:
As for getting your space back a format may be the only way. but dear lord you have a big harddrive and it surprises me that you have it full. I have a 40gb hd and its roughly half full.
Click to expand...

It's real easy to fill up big drives at college, believe me. I've got a 120GB and 30GB drive full of... files. If I had a couple 250GB drives I could fill those up too. As it is I have 4gigs free between the two of them, and part of that is reserved for the page file. I might have to delete something for Doom 3. Or get a new drive.

As for the original topic, I ran into a similar puzzle a while back when I happened to look, but I never did figure it out, unless.... I wonder, do you have system restore on? File indexing? Kill those, defrag, empty recycle bin and protected files if you have that, and see what that gets you.
 
Wow, you have no idea. I have 2 120 GB Maxtor SATA HD's in RAID-0, as well as a Western Digital 80 GB HD in my system and I only have a few gigabytes left to play with. I feel your pain about space constrictions.

That is a very interesting problem though, to be sure. As mentioned earlier, I honestly question if the system restore is hogging those precious bytes of space. Double check that and get back to us.

Dark Assassin
 
System Restore. All the free space is taken by saved restore points. The default hard drive usage for System Restore is 12%. 12% of 103GB is 12.36GB, just a few GB's short of what you are "missing." Also, in WinXP at least, there are seperate view options for showing hidden files/folders, system folders and system files. You are probably missing space here, as well.
 
To do this you need to view hidden files:

Clean out the temp folders in every profile on the computer
Delete all your temporary internet files in every profile on the computer
Delete everything in the windows temp folder

If you never plan on removing your windows updates, you can delete all the un-install information that is stored in your windows folder.

I would also check the size of your page file. Just because it is empty doesn't mean that Windows hasn't set aside a huge chuck of your hard drive for it just in case it needs it.

I'll bet that you have set your temp internet files folder to some insane size and it is sucking up Gigs of space for each profile on your box. Check it and set it to 1MB

You may also want to run a virus scan on your box. Some viruses will write garbage information to your drive until it fills it up and crashes your system.
 
Sysjack said:
It's real easy to fill up big drives at college, believe me. I've got a 120GB and 30GB drive full of... files. If I had a couple 250GB drives I could fill those up too. As it is I have 4gigs free between the two of them, and part of that is reserved for the page file. I might have to delete something for Doom 3. Or get a new drive.

As for the original topic, I ran into a similar puzzle a while back when I happened to look, but I never did figure it out, unless.... I wonder, do you have system restore on? File indexing? Kill those, defrag, empty recycle bin and protected files if you have that, and see what that gets you.
Click to expand...

Just out of curiousity.....why don't you store stuff on CDR's...I have a CD file on my desk.....I store nothing on the HDD except for a little music that I have cd's of. I Like to be able to format and reload OS with no worries...back up email....address book and any current stuff in my documents....and I'm done. Just curious.......... :D ? Course I am an old guy and don't game........
 
"but dear lord you have a big harddrive and it surprises me that you have it full."

I have many, many music files/source code/games installed.

"Just out of curiousity.....why don't you store stuff on CDR's...I have a CD file on my desk"

I do.. but I like to keep all my music on the HDD, hehe.

Thank you VERY much.. it was System Restore. I would have sworn that I turned that off after my last format.. it's usually one of the first things I do. I now have 30.6 gb free on that drive :)

TYVM :)
 
Chix4mat said:
Thank you VERY much.. it was System Restore. I would have sworn that I turned that off after my last format.. it's usually one of the first things I do. I now have 30.6 gb free on that drive :)
Click to expand...
Not a problem. :)
 
i had the same problem with my hdd, i was backing up a lot of movies but i would delete the files right away and empty my recycle bin but my hard drive kept filling up. what it was
is that i have norton system works installed and it puts an extra protection layer on the
recycle bin that needs to be purged also!
so if you have norton system works installed you might want to check that too?
 
I am having a similar problem with my HDD. Mines on the Windows Partition, which I have allocated 20GB for Windows and other programs. I want to do a wipe and reinstall but I'd rather not considering the existence of Sasser and other internet worms that move in really fast. Faster than I can run Windows Update. That being said, I am missing about 5 GB of storage space on this drive.

I am wondering if there is a way to fix it, since I have only two profiles on this computer, Admin and me, and I have cleared out every temp folder. Format and reinstall is a last ditch type of operation in my situation. I have Windows exactly how I like it, though setting it back up is not a huge deal.

b0b
 
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