Vista has started to eat Gigs

[Chris]

Yesterday something strange happened: even though I have about 10 gigs of
free space on my hard disk, I suddenly got a message saying that the free
space was critically low. True enough: it was down to 200MB.. I restarted the
system, and I was back to 10.1 gigs of free space. Then it started to go
down.. I ran several checks for viruses and other malware, but the computer
is apparently clean. I defragmented the disk, which took the free space down
to 2,4 gig, then restarted the PC twice and I got back my 10.1 gig (it should
be higher because I also unstalled three or four programs to free space).
Today, however, the system has already lost 500MB from just being switched
on. I am a bit nervous for the future prospects...

I would really like to know what is going on, what are the processes that
eat my gigs? Two days ago, I received a major update from Vista. Could that
be it? Can anybody help - for instance by suggesting how I can diagnose the
problem?

 

[DL]

Apart from anything else what is the size of your C (Vista) drive?
(Assuming the drive is 100gb even with 10gb free space you are allready
critically low on disk space, which will be affecting your sys)

Maybe Shadow Copy or Restore Points

 

[Rick Rogers]

Hi Chris,

Pagefile expanding, hiberfil.sys being created, restore point creation are
all possibilities. How large is the drive? What percent of it is used? Vista
needs about 15% of the drive space to be left available for overhead.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

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

 

[Victek]

Yesterday something strange happened: even though I have about 10 gigs of

free space on my hard disk, I suddenly got a message saying that the free
space was critically low. True enough: it was down to 200MB.. I restarted
the
system, and I was back to 10.1 gigs of free space. Then it started to go
down.. I ran several checks for viruses and other malware, but the
computer
is apparently clean. I defragmented the disk, which took the free space
down
to 2,4 gig, then restarted the PC twice and I got back my 10.1 gig (it
should
be higher because I also unstalled three or four programs to free space).
Today, however, the system has already lost 500MB from just being switched
on. I am a bit nervous for the future prospects...

I would really like to know what is going on, what are the processes that
eat my gigs? Two days ago, I received a major update from Vista. Could
that
be it? Can anybody help - for instance by suggesting how I can diagnose
the
problem?

You could try running "Disk Cleanup". Make sure all the categories are
checked including the hibernation file if you don't use the hibernation
feature (the one exception is the Office files - keep those if they are
listed). On the disk cleanup advanced tab you can also delete all but the
most recent restore point and shadow copies.

 

[Chris]

Hi there,

I have cleaned the disk, and there is currently only 1 restore point left.
The size of my harddisk is 74Gig, and I'm currently down to 9,20. I have
uninstalled a few programs to free space, but I still keep on losing space -
kb's and Mb's, not gigs as yesterday. Maybe I simply need a larger C drive?

 

[Chris]

Hi there,

My C drive is 74 Gig, and i have used some 88% of the space. Is that it?
That I lose space because I'm out of space? I'm considering buying a larger
harddisk, but that would mean a complete reinstall of Vista and all other
programs which is a bit of work. I am prepared to do it if i have to, but I
thouhgt I could wait for Windows 7..

 

[Chris]

Hi there,
Thanks. I have already done a cleanup. It has not stabilised the system,
though, although it seems more stable now than it did yesterday.

 

[Rick Rogers]

Hi,

Or you could move some of the data files you have to disk as a simple
solution. You've too little drive space left, as the operating system needs
room to expand on demand to accomodate programs being used.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

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

 

[DL]

You need 15% free space (74gb = 11gb free required) for efficient Vista
operation

Did you check shadow copy to see if that's what's eating your space?
A program such as Tree Size will show you exactly what is consuming space.

If you buy a larger disk, the disk manufactures have a free utility for
cloning your existing to the new disk, so you don't have to reinstall
everything. Or a third party utility e.g. Acronis TI can do the same thing,
perhaps better

 

[Chris]

Hi again,

I have Tree size, and this morning I started out with 9.20 Gig of free
space, which for the first hour or so fluctuated between 9,2 and 8,9. When I
left the PC for a meeting I had 9,01 gig of free space. But when I returned
about two hours later, I had only 6,0 gigs of free space. So I lost 3 gigs
just by having the PC turned on. I turned off the computer and started it
again, but I did not get my 3 lost gigs back. I have no idea where they have
gone.

Is this normal - i.e. within the range of changes that may occur randomly?
Because I have too little space left in the first place?

Or is something wrong? If so, what can I do except from buying a larger disk
and perform a clean install? Copying the file system onto a new disk will
also copy the problem, won't it?

Chr

 

[Chris]

Hi again,

On closer inspection in Tree Size, I found that under users - chris -
appData - local - roaming 10 gigs were occupied by Realplayer. I do not know
why this is so large, or if this is the area that keeps on expanding, but
since I do not really need realplayer I uninstalled the program and manually
moved the Real directory under Roaming to another drive - just in case. So
now i have 16,1 gig free space which just now was reduced to 16,0 gig - which
is normal I guess.

I do not know if this solved the problem. But are there any issues with
realplayer and vista?

chr