TECH Having a problem with harddrive space recognition.

[AtheistUnicycle]

My friend recently bought a ~500 GB hard drive for his computer, and he has put ~24GB that he can account for, plus windows vista business. The computer is saying that the C: has ~130 GB taken up. We've checked for hidden folders and there's nowhere near 106 GB - whatever vista is. Can anyone help us figure out what's taking the rest of the space?

 

[Doomsday]

download those disk usage tools
here's a few: http://www.thefreecountry.com/utilities/disk-usage-management.shtml

 

[AtheistUnicycle]

We have already used WinDirStat and we find that there are only 60 gigs (approx) being used while both window and Auslogics tell me that 130 gigs are being used. Also my friend had 127 gigs used yesterday and the only things he's done has been to update the definition files on his avg and adaware.

 

[Limp_Brisket]

that's his porn stash he's not telling you about

 

[Doomsday]

We have already used WinDirStat and we find that there are only 60 gigs (approx) being used while both window and Auslogics tell me that 130 gigs are being used. Also my friend had 127 gigs used yesterday and the only things he's done has been to update the definition files on his avg and adaware.

looks like Vista's Volume Shadow Copy.
turn off system restore, reboot, and check if it did free off the unaccounted space

 

[AtheistUnicycle]

It was the system restore, we turned it off. Is there a way to set a cap as to how much the system restore can store?

 

[Doomsday]

It was the system restore, we turned it off. Is there a way to set a cap as to how much the system restore can store?

1. open an elevated command prompt (run as administrator)
2. type without quotes: 'vssadmin resize shadowstorage /on=c: /for=c: /maxSize=10GB'
** 'c:' is your drive, '10GB' is the cap
3. reboot

 

[Doomsday]

btw,... by default, Vista sets it at 15% of the total drive size, or 30% of available space, whichever is smaller.

don't cap it too low.

 

[deusexaethera]

what is considered "too low", and why is it too low?

 

[Doomsday]

what is considered "too low", and why is it too low?

'too low' would be if you try to restore something and it says its not available.

or if system restore starts saying "there is not enough space, do you want to continue?" or something like that.

note: if there is enough space, system restore will simply overwrite old ones

 

[AtheistUnicycle]

Thank you so much for your responses, Doomsday. We'll try those when my friend gets back from classes, and we'll let you know how it turns out.