Size of the C Drive

[C and A Bredt]

I have a 500 Gig Hard Drive on my Vista Home Premium system. The computer is
only 2 weeks old. When I right click the C Drive and select Properties, it
says 103 Gig Used. But when I look at the sizes of the folders on it, there
is only about 22 Gig of stuff in the folders.

What could the rest be??

Thanks, CB

 

[Patrick Dickey]

I have a 500 Gig Hard Drive on my Vista Home Premium system. The computer
is only 2 weeks old. When I right click the C Drive and select Properties,
it says 103 Gig Used. But when I look at the sizes of the folders on it,
there is only about 22 Gig of stuff in the folders.

What could the rest be??

Thanks, CB
--
C and A Bredt
Dell Inspiron 530
Intel 2.33 GHz Core 2 Duo
Vista Home Premium

Size is relative, I'm afraid. When you look at the folders, they don't
always give you the accurate size. They may give you the size of all of the
files in that folder, but they don't tell you the size of the sub-folders.

In other words, you click on folder a, and it says 22GB. However it's not
telling you that folder "B" inside of folder "A" has 120 G in it.

There are programs available (I believe Sysinternals has some and ToniArts
has a program called EasyCleaner) which shows you this information.

Programs which help you eliminate duplicate files may show the sizes as
well. However, be VERY careful when you use these programs. Files such as
"README.TXT" are duplicates, but probably should not be deleted. And if
it's a program file, you may break something by removing the file. Files
such as "setup.exe" (especially if you download it) are generic and probably
should be left alone (unless you know for a fact that you don't need it
anymore).

Hope this helps you a little bit
Patrick.

 

[Julian]

I have a 500 Gig Hard Drive on my Vista Home Premium system. The computer
is only 2 weeks old. When I right click the C Drive and select Properties,
it says 103 Gig Used. But when I look at the sizes of the folders on it,
there is only about 22 Gig of stuff in the folders.

What could the rest be??

Thanks, CB
--
C and A Bredt
Dell Inspiron 530
Intel 2.33 GHz Core 2 Duo
Vista Home Premium

On the other hand, 15% of 500GB = 75GB for System Restore/ShadowCopies would
account for most of it, 75+22= 97 - quite close to 103.

Look in System Volume Information - you will need to make it visible first
and then say yes if Vista tells you you need to acquire the right privileges
(via UAC... probably also need to be logged in as Adminstrator too...)

HTH

 

[james29100]

Would the recycle bin (set at a percentage of the drive) take up some room

 

[Ronnie Vernon MVP]

CB

Go to the following website. This will show you how to find how much disk
space is being used for System Restore and other shadow copies. It will also
show you how to set a maximum size for these components. 10GB is usually
more than enough.

How to adjust disk space in Windows Vista:
http://bertk.mvps.org/html/diskspacev.html

 

[C and A Bredt]

Thanks to all for the great info. I will watch it for a while before doing
anything. CB

 

[Ronnie Vernon MVP]

CB

Your welcome, let us know if you need more information.