Lost/Fluctuating Harddrive free space

[Guest]

Hello ppl,

I'm having problems with my C: which is a single drive (no partitions) of
about 110GB

I just uninstalled 2 programmes from C:, about 5GB each and my free space
went from about 33GB to 18GB which doesn'tmake sense as it should increase.

When i tried to use O&Odefrag to analyze my com, saw that it too registered
C: as 18GB free space, however the drive map was mostly empty. Shouldnt that
mean that I should have alot more free space. Another weird thing i noticed
is that when i select all the files in C: (even after showing hidden files
and hidden protected system files), it amounts to about 30GB. I should have
about 70-80GB free space.

I'm also using Rollback which takes snapshots of my C:, but I seriously dun
think the snapshots take up that much space (30GB?? is waaay too much).

I then did a checkdisk which required a restart to check for bad sectors.
After the check and restart, my C: was 22GB. Now here is the strange thing,
my free space started climbing all by itself slowly even though I wasnt doign
anything. It climbed to about 42.9GB which makes mroe sense, as i deleted
10Gb from the 2 programmes.

However, that means that my C: is using about 60GB (111-42.9). But as said
earlier, all files in C: only amonuts to 30GB. What happened to the other
30GB?

Hope you guys can help me figure this one out!

 

[Gerry]

Is the computer a server or a workstation?

My reaction is Rollback as soon as you deleted it added a snapshot to
it's piggy bank! How did you remove the programmes?

I wonder how users view these claims by the vendors of Rollback RX?
Windows System Restore uses 5-15% disk space per snapshot. RollBack Rx
only uses 0.1%
Does not reserve any portion of hard disk for "protected data". The
program data structure takes 0.07% of disk space to create up to 60,000
snapshots.
http://www.horizondatasys.com/217872.ihtml

Are you using any Norton (Symantec) products?

--



Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[Guest]

1) Its a personal computer
2) removed via 'add or remove programs' via the control panel
3) Using Norton 360

 

[Gerry]

I am putting in the next paragraph to give a starting point. Please
recheck that your system is set up as suggested.

Go to Start, Control Panel, Folder Options, View, Advanced Settings and
verify that the box before "Show hidden files and folders" is checked
and "Hide protected operating system files " is unchecked. You may need
to scroll down to see the second item. You should also make certain that
the box before "Hide extensions for known file types" is not checked.
Next in Windows Explorer make sure View, Details is selected and then
select View, Choose Details and check before Name, Type, Total Size, and
Free Space.

What is the status of System Restore on your system?

Restore points are kept in the System Volume Information Folder, which
can take 12% of the capacity of the partition. In the normal way you
cannot see the content of the folder:
How to gain access to the System Volume Information folder
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/309531/en-us

Select Start, All Programs, Accessories, System Tools, Disk CleanUp to
Empty your Recycle Bin and Remove Temporary Internet Files. Also select
Start, All Programs, accessories, System Tools, Disk CleanUp, More
Options, System Restore and remove all but the latest System Restore
point. Run Disk Defragmenter.

It is likely that an allocation of 12% has been made to System Restore
on your C partition which is over generous. I would reduce it to 700 mb.
Right click your My Computer icon on the Desktop and select System
Restore. Place the cursor on your C drive select Settings but this time
find the slider and drag it to the left until it reads 700 mb and exit.
When you get to the Settings screen click on Apply and OK and exit.

Do you use the Hibernation feature? How large is hiberfil.sys. This is a
hidden file like the contents of the System Volume Information folder.
It needs to go into your reconcilation.

You have a Master File Table (MFT) which is also hidden. The size can be
established from a Disk Defragmenter Report. Mine is currently 56 mb so
your's is unlikely to make a significant difference.

Some Norton products operate a Protected Recycle Bin, which is also not
visible. These can be a significant size. I could not see it mentioned
amongst the Norton 360 features but you may have one.

The default allocation for the Windows Recycle Bin is 10 % of drive. 5%
should be sufficient. In Windows Explorer place the cursor on your
Recycle Bin, right click and select Properties, Global and move the
slider from 10% to 5%. However, try to avoid letting it get too full as
if it is full and you delete a file by mistake it will bypass the
Recycle Bin and be gone for ever.

Another feature, which makes reconciliation a problem is File
Compreesion. If your drive is formatted as NTFS another potential gain
arises with your operating system on your C drive. In the Windows
Directory of your C partition you will have some Uninstall folders in
your Windows folder typically: $NtServicePackUninstall$ and
$NtUninstallKB282010$ etc. These files may be compressed or not
compressed. If compressed the text of the folder name appears in blue
characters. If not compressed you can compress them. Right click on each
folder and select Properties, General, Advanced and check the box before
Compress contents to save Disk Space. On the General Tab you can see the
amount gained by deducting the size on disk from the size. Folder
compression is only an option on a NTFS formatted drive / partition.

Another thought is that if your pagefile has no maximum then it could
theoretical grow to occupy the all the free disk space. You could
experiment with Rollback in association with PageFile monitor and see
what it has on the size of the pagefile.

Use page file monitor to observe what is the peak usage. Start it to run
immediately after start-up and look at the log. Pagefilemon takes
snapshots. You need to run it at the beginning of the session at then
run it again at intervals throughout the sessions. The log is Pagefile
log.txt. If you right click on the file in Windows Explorer and select
Send to, Desktop (Create Shortcut). The same applies to
XP_PageFileMon.exe.

A small utility to monitor pagefile usage:
http://www.dougknox.com/xp/utils/xp_pagefilemon.htm

Note that programs using undo features, particularly those associated
with graphics and photo editing, require large amounts of memory so if
you use this type of programme check these first observing how the page
usage increases when they start and whether the usage decreases when you
close the programme.

--



Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[Guest]

Heya, this is what i have found so far,
1) Yup all those folder options are set as you have laid out
2) My System Volume Information Folder is empty. Maybe its because I have
never used the Windows System restore. So don't think i'm losing space there.
3) I've alerady done a disk Cleanup (with tuneup utilities), as well as a
check disk and also defragged with (O&O).
3a) On a side note: if the defragger analyzes my drive and shows that much
more than 50% of the map is empty, while Windows is telling me that i'm using
more than 70GB out of my 111GB; Which of these is accurate?
4) I don't use the hibernation feature.

As we speak, I just noticed that my free space went down by 500MB over that
last 5 hours. Havent done anything except create some MS Word docs.

Mighty strange... hope I can find the elusive 20-30GB.
5) 3.99GB is reserved by Recycle bin on the C: (the drive in question)

 

[Gerry]

Have you found out what space Rollback is using? I am sceptical
regarding their claims.

Try Ctrl+Alt+Delete to select Task Manager and click the Performance
Tab. Under Commit Charge what is the Total, the Limit and the Peak?

How much RAM memory?

--



Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[Guest]

Commit Charge (K)
Total - 614436
Limit - 5075628
Peak - 620948

Sometimes SHDSERV.exe which is part of rollback has a CPU usage spike (up to
35% plus minus). Not sure what that means though. At least its better than
GoBack which constantly monitors all activity as opposed to taking a snapshot
like RollBack.