Surely this is not right?

[MikeB]

I had this problem little less than a month ago and today I got bitten
by this again. Surely there is a setting or something in my Vista
Ultimate (SP1) that I'm missing or just haven't set right.

My harddrive fills up with what I understand is restore points and
shadow copies (previous versions) of files . A kind soul has posted
how to go about deleting this (it wasn't easy). I also feel
uncomfortable deleting my restore points, in case a system failure.

But today, I tried downloading pictures from my camera (the 2GB SD
card was full) and the download crashed because I was out of disk
space. I wasn't really, it was just that Vista has *again* taken all
the space for restore points and previous copies. After the crash, I
had to mess around to clean up my disk manually, and then when I tried
downloading the pictures again, I got duplicates, some were missing
and everything is a mess. Some are on the SD card, but the camera
software says they have been downloaded, while I can't find them on
the harddrive. I've tried downloading them into another folder, but
the camera software still says there is nothing new on the card.

How do I control how much space Vista should leave free on my
harddrive and not use for its own purposes such as restore points and
shadow copies? If this was a universal problem, there's be more posts
about this, so I *must* be missing a setting for this.

Thanks.

 

[Richard Urban]

May I ask how large is your hard drive? How is it partitioned - if it is?

I just installed Vista 64 bit and Office 2007 Professional on a 40 gig
partition. After getting all of the Microsoft updates for the above I was
using 33 meg of the 40 meg partition. If you have a small drive to begin
with that may be your problem.

--

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP
Windows Desktop Experience

I had this problem little less than a month ago and today I got bitten
by this again. Surely there is a setting or something in my Vista
Ultimate (SP1) that I'm missing or just haven't set right.

My harddrive fills up with what I understand is restore points and
shadow copies (previous versions) of files . A kind soul has posted
how to go about deleting this (it wasn't easy). I also feel
uncomfortable deleting my restore points, in case a system failure.

But today, I tried downloading pictures from my camera (the 2GB SD
card was full) and the download crashed because I was out of disk
space. I wasn't really, it was just that Vista has *again* taken all
the space for restore points and previous copies. After the crash, I
had to mess around to clean up my disk manually, and then when I tried
downloading the pictures again, I got duplicates, some were missing
and everything is a mess. Some are on the SD card, but the camera
software says they have been downloaded, while I can't find them on
the harddrive. I've tried downloading them into another folder, but
the camera software still says there is nothing new on the card.

How do I control how much space Vista should leave free on my
harddrive and not use for its own purposes such as restore points and
shadow copies? If this was a universal problem, there's be more posts
about this, so I *must* be missing a setting for this.

Thanks.

__________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus
signature database 3953 (20090321) __________

The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus.

http://www.eset.com

__________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus signature database 3953 (20090321) __________

The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus.

http://www.eset.com

 

[Mike Hall - MVP]

I had this problem little less than a month ago and today I got bitten
by this again. Surely there is a setting or something in my Vista
Ultimate (SP1) that I'm missing or just haven't set right.

My harddrive fills up with what I understand is restore points and
shadow copies (previous versions) of files . A kind soul has posted
how to go about deleting this (it wasn't easy). I also feel
uncomfortable deleting my restore points, in case a system failure.

But today, I tried downloading pictures from my camera (the 2GB SD
card was full) and the download crashed because I was out of disk
space. I wasn't really, it was just that Vista has *again* taken all
the space for restore points and previous copies. After the crash, I
had to mess around to clean up my disk manually, and then when I tried
downloading the pictures again, I got duplicates, some were missing
and everything is a mess. Some are on the SD card, but the camera
software says they have been downloaded, while I can't find them on
the harddrive. I've tried downloading them into another folder, but
the camera software still says there is nothing new on the card.

How do I control how much space Vista should leave free on my
harddrive and not use for its own purposes such as restore points and
shadow copies? If this was a universal problem, there's be more posts
about this, so I *must* be missing a setting for this.

Thanks.

If you are having to delete restore points in order to get space to save
other stuff, you should seriously think about extending the boot partition
or get a larger hard drive..

 

[MikeB]

May I ask how large is your hard drive? How is it partitioned - if it is?

I have a Lenovo T500 laptop. The harddrive is partitioned by the
manufacturer as follows:

160 GB harddrive

SW_Preload (C is 137GB. This is the partition for general use. Twice
now it was filled with as little as 1.89GB of free space. After I
deleted the restore points and shadow copies, it has free 67.2GB.

Lenovo (Q 3.25GB free of 9.76GB.

ServiceV003(S 705 MB free of 1.74GB.

The Q: and S: partitions are not for general use. THey are protected.
I get certain warning messages when I click on them. I can create
restore DVDs and delete one of those partitions (I don't recall right
now which one), but I haven't done so as I thought the C: partition
had enough space.

I just installed Vista 64 bit and Office 2007 Professional on a 40 gig
partition. After getting all of the Microsoft updates for the above I was
using 33 meg of the 40 meg partition. If you have a small drive to begin
with that may be your problem.

I really thought that a 160GB drive would be sufficient, since my
previous XP Laptop had a 80GB drive and I was doing fine space-wise.

 

[MikeB]

If you are having to delete restore points in order to get space to save
other stuff, you should seriously think about extending the boot partition
or get a larger hard drive..

Mike, my drive is 160GB and the boot partition is 137GB. What do you
recommend I get that will be sufficient for Vista Ultimate?

Thanks.

 

[Richard Urban]

My son got his wife a "bottom of the line" laptop for Christmas. It cost
$425.00. It came with a 300+ gig hard drive. 160 gig is small by today's
standards. The operating system needs room to breath. Many programs today
lay down about 300-500 meg of files during installation. Some games will
require 2-3 gig of space.

A friend just replaced his defective 80 gig laptop drive with a 500 gig
drive.

--

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP
Windows Desktop Experience

I have a Lenovo T500 laptop. The harddrive is partitioned by the
manufacturer as follows:

160 GB harddrive

SW_Preload (C is 137GB. This is the partition for general use. Twice
now it was filled with as little as 1.89GB of free space. After I
deleted the restore points and shadow copies, it has free 67.2GB.

Lenovo (Q 3.25GB free of 9.76GB.

ServiceV003(S 705 MB free of 1.74GB.

The Q: and S: partitions are not for general use. THey are protected.
I get certain warning messages when I click on them. I can create
restore DVDs and delete one of those partitions (I don't recall right
now which one), but I haven't done so as I thought the C: partition
had enough space.



I really thought that a 160GB drive would be sufficient, since my
previous XP Laptop had a 80GB drive and I was doing fine space-wise.




__________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus
signature database 3953 (20090321) __________

The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus.

http://www.eset.com

__________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus signature database 3953 (20090321) __________

The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus.

http://www.eset.com

 

[Mike Hall - MVP]

If you are having to delete restore points in order to get space to save
other stuff, you should seriously think about extending the boot partition
or get a larger hard drive..

Mike, my drive is 160GB and the boot partition is 137GB. What do you
recommend I get that will be sufficient for Vista Ultimate?

Thanks.


Looking at what has been said already, I ran Vista Ultimate 32bit plus a a
bunch of other stuff including MS Office Ultimate in an 80gb partition on a
160gb drive and managed to keep at least 35% free space. On the rest of the
drive, I kept installation files, graphics, music, documents etc and still
managed to keep 50% free.

Doing a regular Disk Cleanup is necessary and will stop shadow copies and
restore points taking too much space. If you have a great many pictures etc,
the thumbnails store can get out of hand too..

Also, try running 'Treesize'.. it is free and can be downloaded from here..
http://www.jam-software.com/freeware/index.shtml

Having installed it, run a Disk Cleanup and then run Treesize. Print the
results or save as a report for reference later. Run as you would normally
until you notice or are told of a lack of space, then run Treesize again and
compare with earlier results..

 

[DDW]

I really thought that a 160GB drive would be sufficient, since my
previous XP Laptop had a 80GB drive and I was doing fine space-wise.

Your system - if you haven't made changes - is using 15% of your drive
space for VSS and System Restore. You said it was 'difficult" to
remove unwanted restore points... it's simple: find it in the Disk
Cleanup utility under "More Options".

To change the preset allocation of space, follow the instructions
given here (also not difficult).

http://www.petri.co.il/change_amount_of_disk_space_used_by_system_restore_in_vista.htm

Take it down to 5 gigs. That should be enough to keep a few days of
restore points.

DDW

 

[MikeB]

Your system - if you haven't made changes - is using 15% of your drive
space for VSS and System Restore.  You said it was 'difficult" to
remove unwanted restore points... it's simple: find it in the Disk
Cleanup utility under "More Options".

Let me try and take this point by point.

First, thanks for the link you provided.

I have made no changes to my system wrt drive space usage I really
wish I knew where to make these changes, I cannot find it.

My brief calculations are that my system is *not* using 15% of the
drive for this purpose, in fact, it seems to be using hugely more.

The drive is 160GB, the partition is 137GB. 15% of that is either 24GB
or 20.55GB. I reclaimed approximately 66GB of space during the last
time I ran the utility to delete restore points and VSS.

That seems inconsistent. So if this setting is easy to change, please
tel me where it is and I will adjust it. I have looked in System
Properties and it does not seem to be in the System Protection tab. I
recall seeing this setting somewhere in my old XP system, but of
course, now I can't find it.

From a difficult perspective, anything like this that is hidden a few
layers deep and is not easy to find in the help and that I have to
remember to run before being bitten in the ass by a side effect, is,
for me, difficult. I'm sorry, it may be OK for people who are
intimately familiar with the OS and its' workings, it is not that easy
for me.

The side effects, of messing up my camera download is also
unacceptable to me, but that is just me, my camera and its' software,
not a atter that the people here have much influence over.

To change the preset allocation of space, follow the instructions
given here (also not difficult).

http://www.petri.co.il/change_amount_of_disk_space_used_by_system_res...

Take it down to 5 gigs.  That should be enough to keep a few days of
restore points.

You call that "not difficult?" No UI, I have to run a freaking command-
line utility?
Anyhow, I did do it.

Here is the output of the List command:

Shadow Copy Storage association
For volume: (C\\?\Volume{a589e9af-cf02-19dd-bec8-001c259b5bc3}\
Shadow Copy Storage volume: (C\\?\Volume{a589e9af-cf02-19dd-
bec8-001c259b5b
c3}\
Used Shadow Copy Storage space: 6.656 GB
Allocated Shadow Copy Storage space: 9.108 GB
Maximum Shadow Copy Storage space: UNBOUNDED



So if I had followed the advice given by the other two posters, it
would have just taken longer, but I would still have run out of space
eventually.

 

[webster72n]

You have to understand, both of the other posters are MVPs that believe
that if MS makes it so, so be it.

Who cares about RAM usge, RAM is cheap, add more.....

Who cares about HD space, HD space is cheap, buy a bigger HD.....

nothing cheap about either, unless one is loaded and your derogatory remark