Used space on hard drive.

[Alan]

Hi,
Using a Packard Bell machine with a 240GB hard drive. If I right click the C
drive icon it tells me that I have 72.5GB used space.
I know for a fact that nowhere near that amount is used. I've got about 12GB
of pictures and music and lots of small files like Word, Excel etc. Windows
and Program Files are about 11.5GB between them. I'd say I have at the most
about 25G used. Using the search facility (which I recently rebuilt)
confirms this.
I regularly transfer huge camcorder files (up to 26GB) from a digital DV
tape to the hard drive to burn CD's from it. I sometimes then transfer these
files to an external hard drive, but in any case I always delete them.
Also I can't seem to get the machine to defragment. I left it defragmenting
all night last night and it still hasn't finished now.
Any ideas anyone,
TIA,
Alan.

 

[Guest]

Hi Alan-

I had a similar issue and forgot that I had system restore points set. That
takes up a LOT of room since you'll no doubt have more than 1 restore point
at any given time. To delete them go back to where you were "right click the
C drive" in properties and do a clean up. Notice the other tab that says
other options? Click that and you should have an option to delete your
restore points. I was able to recapture about 30 GB of space. I also disabled
my system restore option since I perform a regular external backup of my
drive. Hope this helps.

 

[Alan]

Thanks for that. I did it but I'm not sure if it did any good or not, the
reason being that when I last checked the used space about an hour ago it
said 72.1GB, now it says 78.4GB!!!!
I didn't look at the used space until after I did what you suggested
although that couldn't of actually increased the used space, could it?
I haven't downloaded anything or done anything at all on the machine other
than to send my e-mail to the newsgroup. I don't know what the hell is going
on here!
Regards,
Alan.

 

[Guest]

Wow! That's a new one. I don't know what it could be. However, there is a
known issue regarding a DFS problem:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/177127/en-us. Hopefully a couple of gurus on
this site will have other solutions for you. Post back to let us know what
happens.

 

[Alan]

Thanks for that, I will.
I was glad to see that bulletin about the known problem, I was wondering if
it was something like that.
The reported used space on the machine seems to go up and down anything up
to 10GB for no apparent reason and its always way above what I believe to be
actually on it.
After checking the size of all the folders on the hard drive (I mean
Windows, Program Files, Users etc) the sum of the sizes of all them came to
nothing like the reported used space.
Still seems to never actually complete a defrag though no matter how long I
leave it running. I'm wondering if saving and deleting these massive
camcorder files is screwing it up,
Regards,
Alan.

 

[Guest]

OOPS! Forgot to mention what I use for defrag... Windows is a little slow
(serious understatement). Free utility called WinContig:
http://wincontig.mdtzone.it/en/index.htm. It's a small file and you're able
to control how you defrag.

 

[Alan]

I downloaded that but I'm not sure how to use it. Do you have to enter
individual files or can you enter folders, or better still multiple folders?
I've no idea what's fragmented and what's not so I'm a little nonplussed a
to what to do.
Many thanks for the replies though, its really nice of you to take the time
to help,
Regards,
Alan.

 

[Guest]

Hi Alan

I wish some others would chime in with a little more valuable info. I'm sure
we're not the only ones who've experienced the problem with loss of drive
capacity. I only wished that your solution was as simple as mine.

About WinContig? The beauty of the program is the ability to control how you
defrag; from a single file to a folder. I use the "add folder" option and
then click analyze. At the end of the analysis you're free to defrag or
ignore. You can even stop the defrag after it's been running. I haven't tried
the command line part of the program - just the Windows GUI.

Regards

 

[Alan]

Didn't notice the dropdown to select a folder, idiot I am.Yes, it's a good
tool.
Also I agree that it would nice if some of the big guns on here would get
involved. Somebody must have heard of this before,
Regards,
Alan.