Hello everyone, about two weeks ago I bought a brand new Acer Aspire
5810T with Vista Home x64 on it.

Out of the 454gb available on the 500gb HD,147gb has been used. From
what I can tell, here's what's taking up the space:

- 50gb personal files
- 20gb Windows directory
- 4gb Pagefile
- 3gb between the Program Files directories
- 2 - 3gb miscellaneous other files

The TreeSize program confirms that there's only about 85gb in use on
the harddrive. So wtf? Where's the other 60gb going? Am I just being
stupid and forgetting something simple? Recovery is only 11gb, and it's
on another partition (not part of the 454.) I appreciate your help &&
advice.

*ETA - *Nevermind! I read another post (should've done that first,
sorry :P) and discovered it was System Restore. I disabled it and gained
62gb back, then reenabled it and used 3gb on the first restore point.
Why on earth is there 62gb worth of System Restore data on a brand new
machine?


--
mousetopher

multiple copies. every time windows update runs, it creates a restore
point. if your computer operates normally, its safe to delete all but
the most recent restore point


--
kword88

Keep your restore points. One day you may need them. Here is a more
detailed explanation that I put together. The question comes up all the
time:

With each install and uninstall, Vista writes a shadow (restore point)
of about 1GB - plus one is written each day. For that purpose Vista
reserves 15% of your OS disk partition and allocates/uses it as needed.
Find Command Prompt (in All Programs Accessories Command Prompt),
right click on it and Open as Administrator. Into the little black
window type VSSADMIN LIST SHADOWSTORAGE and hit ENTER. It will show 3
numbers:
Allocated - that is the amount that it has grabbed from your OS
partition at this time
Used - this is the amount currently used
Maximum - this is the ultimate amount it will allocate and use
Once you reach "maximum", it will reuse the space deleting the oldest
shadows for the storage of the newest shadows. With e.g. an appr. 200Gb
of OS partition you should expect a maximum of 30GBs that are reserved
for the system and that you cannot use. If your OS partition is larger
or smaller, the shadowstorage will be accordingly (always 15% max.) But
the restore points (shadows) are required the day you need to do a
system restore


--
whs

I see, thank you for the explanation. (Sorry again for asking a newb
question. ^^) 60gb really seems excessive to me, since the old data gets
overwritten anyway. Is there any way to lower the allocation amount? If
not, I'll probably just make a habit of periodically deleting old
restore points. I'm a HD-space nazi. :P


--
mousetopher

mousetopher wrote:

*ETA - *Nevermind! I read another post (should've done that first,
sorry :P) and discovered it was System Restore. I disabled it and gained
62gb back, then reenabled it and used 3gb on the first restore point.
Why on earth is there 62gb worth of System Restore data on a brand new
machine?

Because Vista reserves that much space (15%) on the hard drive that
you have, and you don't know what process were taken on what became
the final version of Windows that you have on that computer.

If you'd like to set a smaller amount of space for Vista to use, do
what is spelled out he

http://www.petri.co.il/change_amount... _in_vista.htm

Yes. It is very easy to lower the amount of shadowstorage. See he
'How to reduce disk space used by Windows Vista system restore'
(http://www.downloadsquad.com/2007/04...ystem-restore/)


--
whs

Thanks nugget. 3


--
mousetopher

A restore point is created every time you install a new program. A new
restore point is created every time you install a Windows Update. A restore
point is created every day if you do nothing else.

Need I go on?

--

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP
Windows Desktop Experience


"mousetopher" wrote in message
...

Hello everyone, about two weeks ago I bought a brand new Acer Aspire
5810T with Vista Home x64 on it.

Out of the 454gb available on the 500gb HD,147gb has been used. From
what I can tell, here's what's taking up the space:

- 50gb personal files
- 20gb Windows directory
- 4gb Pagefile
- 3gb between the Program Files directories
- 2 - 3gb miscellaneous other files

The TreeSize program confirms that there's only about 85gb in use on
the harddrive. So wtf? Where's the other 60gb going? Am I just being
stupid and forgetting something simple? Recovery is only 11gb, and it's
on another partition (not part of the 454.) I appreciate your help &&
advice.

*ETA - *Nevermind! I read another post (should've done that first,
sorry :P) and discovered it was System Restore. I disabled it and gained
62gb back, then reenabled it and used 3gb on the first restore point.
Why on earth is there 62gb worth of System Restore data on a brand new
machine?


--
mousetopher

"Richard Urban" wrote:

A restore point is created every time you install a new program. A new
restore point is created every time you install a Windows Update. A restore
point is created every day if you do nothing else.

Two out of three isn't bad.

How do you disable the restore point option?

--
J. Carlos

"Richard Urban" escribió en el mensaje
de ...
A restore point is created every time you install a new program. A new
restore point is created every time you install a Windows Update. A
restore point is created every day if you do nothing else.

Need I go on?

--

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP
Windows Desktop Experience


"mousetopher" wrote in message
...

Hello everyone, about two weeks ago I bought a brand new Acer Aspire
5810T with Vista Home x64 on it.

Out of the 454gb available on the 500gb HD,147gb has been used. From
what I can tell, here's what's taking up the space:

- 50gb personal files
- 20gb Windows directory
- 4gb Pagefile
- 3gb between the Program Files directories
- 2 - 3gb miscellaneous other files

The TreeSize program confirms that there's only about 85gb in use on
the harddrive. So wtf? Where's the other 60gb going? Am I just being
stupid and forgetting something simple? Recovery is only 11gb, and it's
on another partition (not part of the 454.) I appreciate your help &&
advice.

*ETA - *Nevermind! I read another post (should've done that first,
sorry :P) and discovered it was System Restore. I disabled it and gained
62gb back, then reenabled it and used 3gb on the first restore point.
Why on earth is there 62gb worth of System Restore data on a brand new
machine?


--
mousetopher