[SolaiH]

Hey there. My "C" partition is about 79GB, a couple of days ago it said that I have around 2GB of free space left. I checked the size of the files within the partition & the total size was around 50GB. I thought there might be some hidden or system files using space, so from the "Folder Options" I selected to show all hidden files & system folders. When I checked the size again it was 57GB, so where'd the other 20GB go? I'm pretty sure that there are no other files on the partition, everything hidden is revealed. Does anyone know what's going on here?

[techie4fun]

Have these numbers been accumulating over time?

First off let's open our Internet Settings and see how much space is being reserved for those downloaded Temporary Internet Files within Internet Explorer: Tools, Options, Browsing History - Settings. Now, what is the current number set to?

From what I'm seeing on my machine, the maximum size is 1024 Megabyte but I have lost 10 gig in the past due to Temporary Internet Files.

[SolaiH]

Hey techie4fun. I don't use Internet Explorer, I use Mozilla Firefox so how can I check the space reserved there? Anyways I checked the internet options in Internet Explorer just in case & it's set to 50 Megabytes. By the way, I already performed a disk cleanup & it only freed 75 Megabytes.

[techie4fun]

If you aren't using Internet Explorer, I would have suggested to run the disk clean up utility, but you were only able to remove 75 megabytes worth of stuff. Now, I know that System Restore can be set to allow truck loads worth of restore points but ONLY IF you allow Windows to reserve that amount of space. "Right Click" on My Computer and Choose Properties. It should direct you to system properties. Under System Restore choose settings and see how much space is being reserved for it.

I'm out of answers.

[mphenterprises]

Hi SolaiH. I have a suggestion for you. As much as I do not think there are 20GBs of Temporary Internet Files, Cookies, History, and Cache, download and run an application called CCleaner. This application will delete all traces of the aforementioned files, including any files in the Recycling Bin, and will ultimately free up space.

http://www.ccleaner.com/

From within the application, click on Options -> Settings -> (under Secure Deletion ) select Secure File Deletion and choose Gutmann (35 passes). Please note that this process may take a long time.

[jbking]

Do you have System Restore takng up some space? How is virtual memory configured, is another possibility for taking up some space. Have you ran a defrag recently as fragmented files can also eat up some space.

JB

[piyushsingh]

Other that what jbking said, your hibernation file will take up a lot of space that is not accounted in the explorer view. Also the shadow copy space .
Make sure your recycle bin is empty as file in recycle bin will also take up space.

[SolaiH]

Thank you all for your support & help. I'm a Vista user so I don't really know where to get the System Restore settings from. As for the hibernation file, yes it's taking about 2GB but I don't want to delete that so not to disable the Hibernation option. I will try mphenterprises' method & tell you how it goes.

Edit: I tried CCleaner but still didn't work, only freed about 100MB or something. How do I check the virtual memory & the system restore settings on Vista?
Message was edited by: SolaiH

[piyushsingh]

hi [~152615]

Windows automatically manages the virtual memory settings for all drives , and if you are not fully familiar with its setting then you can leave it as it is. The virtual memory setting can be opened by : right click on my computer icon on desktop -> go to properties . In the system dialog box that opens, click advanced system settings on the left hand side. Next in the advanced tab , click settings under the performance heading. Again go to the advanced tab and the virtual memory settings will be there.

Post back what you see there before making any changes. Also right click on your C: drive and go to properties and post the screen here . What abt the recycle bin? Is it empty or does CCcleaner takes care of that also ?

[SolaiH]

Hey piyushsingh
The total paging file size for all drives is 2345MB, is that too much or should I leave it as it is? (Remember the missing space is 20GB, not just 2GB).
Now here are the screens for the system properties & the actual file size that I see (with all hidden & system files shown):


As you can see, the system properties tells me the used space is 77.8GB while when I check the size of the folders inside the partition I find it to be 57.4GB...where'd the other 20GB go?! (The recycle bin is empty, I cleaned it with CCleaner as well as the registry & all the temp internet files & everything CCleaner cleans).

Edit: Ok I'm really confused now. I performed an "Error Checking" on the partition, after the restart the used space backed down to 67.8GB...I just got 10GB back! I really don't know what's going on, I thought I'd provide this info to help understand what's the cause of this.

[piyushsingh]

I must say that was a very good move that you used chkdsk on the C: drive. Earlier i was thinking how come 20 GB of space went missing , but 10GB can be easily accounted. This space is allocated to system restore . By default vista takes 15% of drive space for this purpose. That makes about 11.7 GB for you C: drive. So this is fine.

I m not sure as to why the earlier space wasnt showing correctly. But if i remember correctly , you were earlier trying to shrink the partitions , maybe an unsuccessful attempt or a process kill during shrink might have caused this . Anyway its fine now.

[SolaiH]

Thanks piyushsingh. Don't you think 15% is a bit too much? Should I decrease it or leave it as is? (How do I reduce it anyway?).

[piyushsingh]

I have kept this at 15% default only. 10 gigs of reserved space will save you from most disasters , then why not keep it. Its a small price as compared with other back-up and other such solutions. Decreasing this space will limit the no. of restore points that you have . So its better to keep it there. Plus system restore in vista is even better than in XP and is implemented to shadow copies allowing you to restore specific folders rather than complete PC .

[smax013]

SolaiH said:

Hey piyushsingh

The total paging file size for all drives is 2345MB, is that too much or should I leave it as it is? (Remember the missing space is 20GB, not just 2GB).

As [~71480] suggested, you are usually best servered by letting Windoze use what it would like. If you do want to manually manage it, the general recommendation is to have your paging file size be about 150% the size of your physical RAM (which is what Windoze will typically recommend/set if you leave it to Windoze).