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Windows Vista File Management Issues or questions in relation to Vista's file management. (microsoft.public.windows.vista.file_management)

hard drive appears nearly full but is only 25% used



 
 
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  #1 (permalink)  
Old May 6th 10, 01:48 AM posted to microsoft.public.windows.vista.file_management
frankfleck
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2
Default hard drive appears nearly full but is only 25% used


I have vista home premium, 200gb hard drive. i had not been paying
attention until I received a warning that I was running out of space.
Being sort of a dummy, I took computer to Best Buy. They ran
diagnostics. They found no problems. Then they cleaned it up and
optimized it. When I got it home the C drive showed 177gb capacity with
135gb free space. Within 3 days my free space was reduced by approx
25gb. I downloaded and ran Auslogics Defrag and my free space was again
135gb. But in the last 5 days my free space has been disappearing. It's
at 113gb right now. I realize that's plenty of free space, but I'd like
to rectify this problem before I'm close to showing full again. Can
someone help me?


--
frankfleck
Posted via http://www.vistaheads.com

  #2 (permalink)  
Old May 6th 10, 02:45 PM posted to microsoft.public.windows.vista.file_management
R. C. White
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,871
Default hard drive appears nearly full but is only 25% used

Hi, Frank.

This question gets asked often, so Google or Bing should find plenty of
answers for you. But the answers come in many parts because there are many
causes for your question - so there are many partial answers.

Just a few candidates:
Since files are stored on the disk in fixed-size "clusters" or "allocation
units", a one-byte file can take a full 4 KB cluster, so many small files
can take a lot more space than just the number of bytes in the files.

Deleted files continue to take up space until you empty the Recycle Bin.

System Restore points can gobble up loads of space, depending on your
settings in Control Panel | System | System Protection.

The hidden system files hiberfil.sys and pagefile.sys can take up several
times as much space as your total RAM.

As I said, these are just a few possible places to start your research.
There are many others. Good luck!

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX

Microsoft Windows MVP
Windows Live Mail 2009 (14.0.8089.0726) in Win7 Ultimate x64)

"frankfleck" wrote in
message ...

I have vista home premium, 200gb hard drive. i had not been paying
attention until I received a warning that I was running out of space.
Being sort of a dummy, I took computer to Best Buy. They ran
diagnostics. They found no problems. Then they cleaned it up and
optimized it. When I got it home the C drive showed 177gb capacity with
135gb free space. Within 3 days my free space was reduced by approx
25gb. I downloaded and ran Auslogics Defrag and my free space was again
135gb. But in the last 5 days my free space has been disappearing. It's
at 113gb right now. I realize that's plenty of free space, but I'd like
to rectify this problem before I'm close to showing full again. Can
someone help me?


--
frankfleck
Posted via
http://www.vistaheads.com

  #3 (permalink)  
Old May 6th 10, 02:45 PM posted to microsoft.public.windows.vista.file_management
R. C. White
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,871
Default hard drive appears nearly full but is only 25% used

Hi, Frank.

This question gets asked often, so Google or Bing should find plenty of
answers for you. But the answers come in many parts because there are many
causes for your question - so there are many partial answers.

Just a few candidates:
Since files are stored on the disk in fixed-size "clusters" or "allocation
units", a one-byte file can take a full 4 KB cluster, so many small files
can take a lot more space than just the number of bytes in the files.

Deleted files continue to take up space until you empty the Recycle Bin.

System Restore points can gobble up loads of space, depending on your
settings in Control Panel | System | System Protection.

The hidden system files hiberfil.sys and pagefile.sys can take up several
times as much space as your total RAM.

As I said, these are just a few possible places to start your research.
There are many others. Good luck!

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX

Microsoft Windows MVP
Windows Live Mail 2009 (14.0.8089.0726) in Win7 Ultimate x64)

"frankfleck" wrote in
message ...

I have vista home premium, 200gb hard drive. i had not been paying
attention until I received a warning that I was running out of space.
Being sort of a dummy, I took computer to Best Buy. They ran
diagnostics. They found no problems. Then they cleaned it up and
optimized it. When I got it home the C drive showed 177gb capacity with
135gb free space. Within 3 days my free space was reduced by approx
25gb. I downloaded and ran Auslogics Defrag and my free space was again
135gb. But in the last 5 days my free space has been disappearing. It's
at 113gb right now. I realize that's plenty of free space, but I'd like
to rectify this problem before I'm close to showing full again. Can
someone help me?


--
frankfleck
Posted via
http://www.vistaheads.com

  #4 (permalink)  
Old May 6th 10, 04:29 PM posted to microsoft.public.windows.vista.file_management
Jeffrey Kaplan
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 63
Default hard drive appears nearly full but is only 25% used

Previously on microsoft.public.windows.vista.file_management,
frankfleck said:

I have vista home premium, 200gb hard drive. i had not been paying
attention until I received a warning that I was running out of space.
Being sort of a dummy, I took computer to Best Buy. They ran
diagnostics. They found no problems. Then they cleaned it up and
optimized it. When I got it home the C drive showed 177gb capacity with
135gb free space. Within 3 days my free space was reduced by approx
25gb. I downloaded and ran Auslogics Defrag and my free space was again
135gb. But in the last 5 days my free space has been disappearing. It's
at 113gb right now. I realize that's plenty of free space, but I'd like
to rectify this problem before I'm close to showing full again. Can
someone help me?


In addition to what RC wrote, it may also be a sign that the drive or
controller is going bad.

If the computer is detecting, rightly or wrongly, that sectors of the
drive are bad, the system will mark them as unusable and shrink the
available space accordingly.

If diagnostics were run specifically to check for this and found
nothing, then either nothing is wrong or it's wrong in such a way that
systemically probing each sector fails to find the problem. That is
possible, that has happened to me once, on a Win2K computer.

--
Jeffrey Kaplan www.gordol.org
Double ROT13 encoded for your protection

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that
matter." - Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.
  #5 (permalink)  
Old May 6th 10, 04:29 PM posted to microsoft.public.windows.vista.file_management
Jeffrey Kaplan
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 63
Default hard drive appears nearly full but is only 25% used

Previously on microsoft.public.windows.vista.file_management,
frankfleck said:

I have vista home premium, 200gb hard drive. i had not been paying
attention until I received a warning that I was running out of space.
Being sort of a dummy, I took computer to Best Buy. They ran
diagnostics. They found no problems. Then they cleaned it up and
optimized it. When I got it home the C drive showed 177gb capacity with
135gb free space. Within 3 days my free space was reduced by approx
25gb. I downloaded and ran Auslogics Defrag and my free space was again
135gb. But in the last 5 days my free space has been disappearing. It's
at 113gb right now. I realize that's plenty of free space, but I'd like
to rectify this problem before I'm close to showing full again. Can
someone help me?


In addition to what RC wrote, it may also be a sign that the drive or
controller is going bad.

If the computer is detecting, rightly or wrongly, that sectors of the
drive are bad, the system will mark them as unusable and shrink the
available space accordingly.

If diagnostics were run specifically to check for this and found
nothing, then either nothing is wrong or it's wrong in such a way that
systemically probing each sector fails to find the problem. That is
possible, that has happened to me once, on a Win2K computer.

--
Jeffrey Kaplan www.gordol.org
Double ROT13 encoded for your protection

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that
matter." - Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.
 




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