Cannot find what is using up 90GB

[Guest]

I have a new laptop with Vista. My C drive is 105GB, I can only account for
10GB I have a mysterious something that is taking up 90MB because my
harddrive is full, I barely have anything else loaded, ITunes with about 20
songs. Could this be a Vista issue? Virus?

 

[DP]

Have you checked the option to show hidden files? Some of what's taking up
your space may be hidden.

Also, was your drive partitioned to create a recovery partition, probably
labeled D ?

 

[Not Me]

Do you have another partition setup or such?
That is a LOT of missing real estate.
Did it ever show the rest of the drive? If NOT, call the manufacturer!
Do you have an inactive partition listed in Disk management?

 

[Guest]

That seems like a like of space for sleep mode, any recommendations?

 

[Guest]

I showed all hidden file and still found nothing. When I look at my computer
I only see a SW_PreLoad C: drive.

 

[Guest]

How would I find an inactive partition? I showed all hidden files and still
do not see it.

 

[Guest]

Go to Control Panel, Administative tools , Computer management and select
Disk management. There you will see details of the physical disk(s) and the
partitions or unallocated space within. Your C: drive should occupy at least
half even if the Laptop manufacturer has installed a recover partition.

 

[Guest]

Yes, I show a blank drive with 5GB (EISA configuration) and C drive with
100GB (system, boot, active). The 100GB has only 5GB free and that is my
issue, I don't have much saved at all, could it just be my backup or
hybernate program taking up that huge amount of space?

 

[DP]

Have you been backing up to your hard drive? Then that's the problem.
You're wasting space for nothing if so, because if your hard drive crashes,
all of your recovery files are on the same hard drive.

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

I have a new laptop with Vista. My C drive is 105GB, I can only account
for 10GB I have a mysterious something that is taking up 90MB because my
harddrive is full, I barely have anything else loaded, ITunes with about
20 songs. Could this be a Vista issue? Virus?

Did your laptop come with tech support? If so, contact them. This group
is the wrong place to seek guidance. Most of the regulars in this group
are in a state of denial about Windows Vista and its many problems. They
will either blame you or attempt to blame a 3d party driver.

Charlie

 

[Don]

... Most of the regulars in this group
are in a state of denial about Windows Vista and its many problems. They
will either blame you or attempt to blame a 3d party driver.

But the drivers are a very real problem -- nothing imaginary about it.

The real question in my mind is why the hardware manufacturers have been
so slow to release Vista drivers for their own products.

My conspiracy theory ;o) is that the hardware people are finally fed up
after decades of being treated as the poor relations by the heavy-handed
monopolist. They are now saying, "Gee, Mr. Bill, you mean your giga-
buck company can't manage to generate its own drivers for our measly
and unimportant little hardware devices? That's a shame, and we'll try
to set the problem right, but it may take us a good while. Meanwhile,
keep up your marketing efforts and don't wait around for us..."

 

[DP]

This group
is the wrong place to seek guidance. Most of the regulars in this group
are in a state of denial about Windows Vista and its many problems. They
will either blame you or attempt to blame a 3d party driver.

I think the OP would say that, at least as far as this question is
concerned, the members of this group were very helpful until you tried to
change the topic.

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

But the drivers are a very real problem -- nothing imaginary about it.

The real question in my mind is why the hardware manufacturers have been
so slow to release Vista drivers for their own products.

My conspiracy theory ;o) is that the hardware people are finally fed up
after decades of being treated as the poor relations by the heavy-handed
monopolist. They are now saying, "Gee, Mr. Bill, you mean your giga-
buck company can't manage to generate its own drivers for our measly and
unimportant little hardware devices? That's a shame, and we'll try to
set the problem right, but it may take us a good while. Meanwhile, keep
up your marketing efforts and don't wait around for us..."

I think the bottleneck is a combination of high development costs and
limited resources. None of the Microsoft apologists seem to realize (or
care) that the typical hardware company (like Nvidia, for example) is an
order of magnitude smaller than MS in terms of revenues, and has an
operating margin of 10-15% (in a good year) vs. over 25% for MS every
year. Unlike MS, these companies don't have 23 billion dollars parked on
their balance sheets, ready to spend the moment a fresh problem arises.

Charlie

 

[Guest]

I have a new laptop with Vista. My C drive is 105GB, I can only account for
10GB I have a mysterious something that is taking up 90MB because my
harddrive is full, I barely have anything else loaded, ITunes with about 20
songs. Could this be a Vista issue? Virus?

hey i had the same problem. i had about 15 gb's of space unaccounted for on
my hd and i noticed that everytime my cpu went to sleep mode another several
hundred mb would just disappear. after poking around for too many hours i
found a post by ron jon that remedied the problem here's the link:

http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/co...a2daa5a&cat=&lang=en&cr=US&sloc=en-us&m=1&p=1

and the quote

"Ron Jon 2/25/2007 1:58 AM PST

You've covered the basics so it points toward the "System Volume
Information" folder filling up. Every time you install/uninstall apps it
creates a new restore point. Each file can be anywhere between 100MB to
450MB and it soon starts to add up.

Try the following (only if you are happy with the current performance of
your PC and all the apps installed are working as intended):--

Right Click on Computer (my computer) and choose properties.

Choose Advanced system settings from the left plane of the window.

Select the System Protection Tab on the new window.

Sounds like you only have a single disk partition (Drive C) so remove the
tick and click Apply.

Now replace the tick in Drive C and click Apply.

Click on the Create button to make a new restore point (because at this
point you have nothing to fall back on), then give it a name and then OK all
the way out and close the windows.

You should see quite a bit more free space recovered.
Hope this helps"

good luck
chris

 

[tomlives2000]

a better way is to open drive properties and then disk cleanup > more
options tab clean up system restore and shadow copies.