5+GB on my HD in 2 days...

[IWantXPBack]

My harddrive seems to fill up really fast on this Vista (business) machine. I
have moved almost all of my personal files onto external drives, and I've
deleted all software that I don't use.

When this machine was shipped, I had at least 40GB of the 86GB available
(which seems like a scam to begin with...)

Even though I have put nowhere near 30GB of software or data on this
machine, I was recently getting down into the "red" single digits of
remaining space.

So I checked around here on the forums and saw something about disabling
"restoration points." I did this, and reclaimed a fair amount of space (maybe
6GB).

At the beginning of this week, I had over 10GB of free space on my drive.
Then I came down with some sort of bug and have been sick all week, hardly
touching the computer at all.

I just noticed that the free space is down to less than 5GB.

How did 5GB of storage get taken on my hard drive when I haven't even been
using the machine?

Where does all of this data come from?

I've run Disk Cleanup, but that only cleared out a few hundred MB.

I have Norton Internet Security up and running, behind a hardware firewall,
so there's no virus at work here.

What parts of Vista are creating so much data that 5GB can suddenly appear
on my drive in the course of two days when I've installed nothing, downloaded
nothing, and transferred nothing?

I'd really like to know how to reclaim as much of my drive space as
possible, and keep this sort of thing from happening in the future.

 

[John Smith]

This phenomena is called SHADOW copy and its part of system restore

windows tries to keep backup copies of ALL your files in case you want to
restore one
from a previous version...

While apple has this technology in a super duper 3d GUI called TIME MACHINE,
vista has its own CRAPY version...

the difference is that the MACOSX version (time machine) only works if you
plug in a second hard drive, and it uses THAT drive for this function.. and
not your primary drive to fill it up so fast..

ok vista is stupid..

 

[Saucy]

My harddrive seems to fill up really fast on this Vista (business)
machine. I
have moved almost all of my personal files onto external drives, and I've
deleted all software that I don't use.

When this machine was shipped, I had at least 40GB of the 86GB available
(which seems like a scam to begin with...)

Even though I have put nowhere near 30GB of software or data on this
machine, I was recently getting down into the "red" single digits of
remaining space.

So I checked around here on the forums and saw something about disabling
"restoration points." I did this, and reclaimed a fair amount of space
(maybe
6GB).

At the beginning of this week, I had over 10GB of free space on my drive.
Then I came down with some sort of bug and have been sick all week, hardly
touching the computer at all.

I just noticed that the free space is down to less than 5GB.

How did 5GB of storage get taken on my hard drive when I haven't even been
using the machine?

Where does all of this data come from?

I've run Disk Cleanup, but that only cleared out a few hundred MB.

I have Norton Internet Security up and running, behind a hardware
firewall,
so there's no virus at work here.

What parts of Vista are creating so much data that 5GB can suddenly appear
on my drive in the course of two days when I've installed nothing,
downloaded
nothing, and transferred nothing?

I'd really like to know how to reclaim as much of my drive space as
possible, and keep this sort of thing from happening in the future.

Did you notice that Disk Cleanup has two tabs: "Disk Cleanup" and "More
Options"?

On the "More Options" tab the 'Clean up..' button in the "System Restore and
Shadow Copies " section will erase all the restore points and shadow copies
which can take up a lot of space over time..

Saucy

 

[Lorne]

I had the same issue. My 70 Gig OS partition was completely full. After
moving back to XP Pro I have 55Gig free - same applications, same data.

 

[IWantXPBack]

Thanks for your reply.

Yes, I used that feature, and it had no noticable impact on my storage space.

 

[NoStop]

I had the same issue. My 70 Gig OS partition was completely full. After
moving back to XP Pro I have 55Gig free - same applications, same data.

Microsoft must own shares in hard drive companies. What else could explain
the bloatware that is Fista?

Cheers.

PS. Frank, if you're stalking again, remember:

1) My sig is here to help you. Please read it.

2) Do as your mom tells you. Don't remove that cork from your fork. It's
there to prevent you from personally hurting yourself while eating those
peas.


--
An HONEST Vista Ad:

The Rolling Stones Love Vista:

Frank - seek help immediately! Visit ...
http://www.binsa.org/

 

[ray]

My harddrive seems to fill up really fast on this Vista (business) machine. I
have moved almost all of my personal files onto external drives, and I've
deleted all software that I don't use.

When this machine was shipped, I had at least 40GB of the 86GB available
(which seems like a scam to begin with...)

Even though I have put nowhere near 30GB of software or data on this
machine, I was recently getting down into the "red" single digits of
remaining space.

So I checked around here on the forums and saw something about disabling
"restoration points." I did this, and reclaimed a fair amount of space (maybe
6GB).

At the beginning of this week, I had over 10GB of free space on my drive.
Then I came down with some sort of bug and have been sick all week, hardly
touching the computer at all.

I just noticed that the free space is down to less than 5GB.

How did 5GB of storage get taken on my hard drive when I haven't even been
using the machine?

Where does all of this data come from?

I've run Disk Cleanup, but that only cleared out a few hundred MB.

I have Norton Internet Security up and running, behind a hardware firewall,
so there's no virus at work here.

What parts of Vista are creating so much data that 5GB can suddenly appear
on my drive in the course of two days when I've installed nothing, downloaded
nothing, and transferred nothing?

I'd really like to know how to reclaim as much of my drive space as
possible, and keep this sort of thing from happening in the future.

Rather interesting. I just completed a new install of Fedora8 Linux -
3.9gb - I installed everything but the kitchen sink - web server,
development apps, full office suites, several desktops, . . .
I have another system which has been running Ubuntu Linux for a couple of
years now, again with virtually 'everything' installed. It's now up to
11gb, but 5.5gb of that are digital photos I've downloaded.

 

[IWantXPBack]

Wow, ray, thanks for that helpful info.

If it weren't for the fact that banks, hospitals and law firms I write
software for demand ASP.Net-based applications, I might consider screwing
around with Linux.

But in the 10+ years I've been hearing about how great Linux is, I've never
once had a client tell me that their software had to be compatible with
Linux. And I like to work for clients who are doing important stuff...see,
they pay really well.

So...yeah...I don't really care.


If all else fails I'm just going to reformat this machine and install XP
Pro. That is one of the best operating systems I've ever used. (And I started
out with vi on UNIX).