space on hard drive

[Harmon Koeltz]

A call to tech. (no) support at my computer manufacturer left me with a
question that I think they answered incorrectly. My Notebook came with a 120
gig drive. When I look at the two drives; C and D, I note the following:
Local Disc C 60.1 GB free of 101 GB
Recovery D 2.69 GB free of 10.4 GB
That tells me I have a 111.4 GB drive. Tech support says the unaccounted for
8.6 GB is system Restore Points. I contend that those are part of the 39.9
used space (101 GB less 60.1GB). Of course the techie didn't realize that
all but the most recent point can be deleted in Disc Cleanup which I haven't
done, but will do.

So to simplify, where might the missing 8.6GB be hiding?

Thanks

Harmon

 

[Rick Rogers]

Hi,

The system restore points would be part of the used space. Actually, the
answer is quite different, as it has to do with the difference between how
Windows defines a drive size, and how a manufacturer does. To the latter,
120GB is 120,000,000,000 bytes. However, to Windows, a GB is not
1,000,000,000 bytes but rather 1,073,741,824 bytes (1024x1024x1024). So, a
120,000,000,000 byte drive divided by 1,073,741,824 is 111.76GB. The small
remaining variance is space lost when the partitions are aligned on the
drive.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
My thoughts http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com

 

[Harmon Koeltz]

THANKS
Now i know.
If only tech (no) support were as informed as you.

Excuse the top post and thanks again

Harmon

 

[Guest]

Your reply above was very helpful - I had the same issue...when I bought my
laptop the specs said that it had 160G drive - out of the box it was showing
only 148G.

I have to further ask though.....of the 148G drive only 120G were free...I
called HP support and was told that Vista uses about 13G, plus there was
software already loaded - totally understandable. What I am having an issue
with is that in the last 8 days (yes, the laptop is only 8 days old), I have
somehow managed to use another 15G - bringing my free space to 105G?? I have
only installed my camera and Ipod software since then....

Also, sometimes on startup, we are not always presented with a mouse cursor.
When we try to log onto one of our user accounts we get the following error
"Local session manager service failed the logon. The group or resource is
not in the correct state to perform the required operation."

I spent 2 hours on the phone with HP support and they want me to do a system
restore - they think I have a virus? I am not so sure - I have had Norton
Internet Security running since setup and we really haven't downloaded
anything.

Any suggestions or comments?

 

[Rick Rogers]

Hi,

The hibernate file can occupy considerable space on a laptop, as can the
system retore points (they alone can use 12% of the available drive space).

The error message is probably not a virus, but more likely is being caused
by the antivirus software itself. I've seen this very same error reported on
other machines with Norton software installed, and removal of it seems to
resolve the problem.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
My thoughts http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com

 

[Guest]

I am able to get rid of that hibernate file or disable it as I do not have
the laptop set up to user hibernation mode? And with the restore points - is
there any way to delete those and just keep the last current working point?

I installed tree size last night and my System Volume Information folder is
at 15G - and all other space is accounted for - so I am hoping that by next
week I am not donw to 90G

 

[Rick Rogers]

Hi,

Disable hibernate, then disk cleanup will allow you to remove the hibernate
file as well as the extra restore points if you use the option to cleanup
files from all users.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
My thoughts http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com