Reduced disk free space after defrag in Vista SP1

[post4slyn]

Hi folks,

I performed a clean install of Windows Vista Ultimate, updated all my
drivers, installed SP1, and loaded all my applications. When finished, I had
about 114GB of free space being reported. I ran defrag and after about 4-5
hours of running, the free space on that volume was reduced to 98GB. I did a
clean disk and then a check disk afterwards and nothing changed.

I just performed a defrag using the command line using the "-w" option and
now I'm down to 90GB. Does anyone know what is going on?

Thanks in advance.

sl

 

[Victek]

Hi folks,

I performed a clean install of Windows Vista Ultimate, updated all my
drivers, installed SP1, and loaded all my applications. When finished, I
had
about 114GB of free space being reported. I ran defrag and after about 4-5
hours of running, the free space on that volume was reduced to 98GB. I did
a
clean disk and then a check disk afterwards and nothing changed.

I just performed a defrag using the command line using the "-w" option and
now I'm down to 90GB. Does anyone know what is going on?

Thanks in advance.

sl

It's hard to figure how this has anything to do with defrag, but have you
had a look at your System Restore and Shadow Copies? If you delete all but
the the most recent (Disk Cleanup/More Options) you may get all the
"missing" disk space back.

 

[post4slyn]

Thanks,

Yes, I had been using Disk Cleanup and removed all but the lastest system
restore points. No matter what I did, the total drive space available kept
going down. I went so far as to start checking file sizes using DIR (plus
options) looking for any hidden or system files (other than the paging file)
that may have been taking up space. I did not find anything unusual.
Interestingly enough, the amount of drive space used reported stayed pretty
much constant, but did not match total drive space LESS used space.

After shutting down the computer and starting it back up with a full bootup
the following day, the free drive space returned back to the 112GB value (I
can't remember if I did a follow-up Disk Cleanup). Although my reported free
space varies some (+/- 1-2GB), it now seems relatively stable. It is my guess
that there was something NTFS was storing outside of the normal content
(indexes? shadow copies?), however, I have no idea what was going on.
Nonetheless, I appreciate the response.

sl

 

[Ahmad]

I have found the solution!!! It's all because of shadow copies!! right click
on your hard drive, click properties, go to general tab, click disc clean up,
go to more options and then clean up shadow copies!!!! you will get back your
disk space!!!

 

[Fixall]

Hello, I wish someone could come up with an equally easy solution for XP. I
have had exactly the same problem but there is no mention of "Shadow Copies"
in XP's Disc Clean Up. Microsoft must have seen the need for it by the time
they got to Vista. I took the drastic measure of re installing Windows which
did recover even more space than I expected but there must be an easier way.

I have found the solution!!! It's all because of shadow copies!! right click
on your hard drive, click properties, go to general tab, click disc clean up,
go to more options and then clean up shadow copies!!!! you will get back your
disk space!!!

I had this happen dunno why people arent talking more about it. I did a
defrag with o&o and windows defrag and lost space that i didnt gain back
even after the scandisk and cleaning up. I had to use asulogic defrager
but i dont like it to much... ;[
Shawn

 

[Tom Ferguson]

I have not followed the whole discussion; however, based on the part of it
seen below, It seems that you have deleted/removed some 'shadow copies' and
now have more reported disk space.

What you have actually done is remove some file backups which might prove
useful should some file become corrupted in favor of disk space which is not
yet needed. If you left the entire matter to the system to manage, should
the space have been required, it would delete some or all shadow copies to
free the space when it was needed.


Tom Ferguson
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-vista/features/shadow-copy.aspx