(Xps m1530) Why does my hard drive say that there is only 140gb of free space left on my hard drive? Does Vista take 50+ gb??!!

I couldn't be happier with the performance of my xps m1530, yet one issue is particularly irritating. I ordered my laptop with a 250gb 5400rpm hard drive, yet it says that there are only 220gb of free space along with a 10gb recovery d drive. Is this normal? Also, I checked and it says only 140gb are free, and I only have a few games/applications. I checked on add/remove programs, and I can't find what is hogging all the space.

~Does vista itself take over 50gb of space??

~If not is there some hidden dell bloatware I can remove?
Your thoughts would be much appreciated

 

A 250GB drive isn't actually 250GB.

 

Ya, a 250GBdrive isn't really 250GBs.

 

Do you know what is taking up over 80gb though? It now says I only have 140gb left of 220gb total. Is there hidden bloatware?

 

It is close to 250, but you must remember Media Direct takes up 2.5GB or 3 GB(if you reformated), as well as many recovery files and partitions that take up some more space. Its not surprising you see that.

@Paul
There is no "hidden bloatware" that takes up that much space. My brand new M1530 came with 208GB of free space on the C drive out of 220GB.

 

Yes I see that now, but how I check what is occupying 80gb on my system? The add/remove programs center doesn't seem to show what is occupying all that space

 

Restore points/volume shadow copies alone can take up to 10% of your drive, if you have not configured it to take any less, or stopped that service completely.

 

System restore and Shadow Copy is most likely the cause of some of your missing space. I just did a clean up on mine and got over 20GB back.

 

Well there you go. Just as I said. 10%.. 200GB drive.. got 20GB back

 

Ah I see, thank you, but I must ask How you do a cleanup of system restore and shadow copy? I did a disc defragment and disc cleanup already saving a few hundred megabytes.

 

Right-click on the disc c: and select properties. On the Genaral Tab click Disk Cleanup. Click on the More Options Tab and then the Clean Up button in the System restore and Shadow Copy section.

 

Start->Programs->Accessories->System Tools->Disk Cleanup
Choose your C: drive.
or
Right-click your C: drive in My Computer. On the General tab, there is the same button.

Click the More Options tab, then click on the Clean up button.

Look at your free disk space

 

Go to your computer. Right click and select properties of your HDD. Go to disk cleanup near the middle, then select the tab that says More Options. Then select the Cleanup button for system restore and shadow copies.

EDIT: me and my slow typing.

 

Thank you, I just got it up to 174gb free space from system restore/shadow file cleanup, but still feel that there should be much more space available. Am I just not looking hard enough in the "uninstall or change program" section? I see that hibernate takes a massive 3.94gb, but I do use it occasionally and don't think I should clean it up.

 

Well the "250 gig" HDD really only has about 230 gig. You still have the backup partition, which is 10 gig, bringing you to 220 gig. Then with Vista/programs etc.... 174 is quite reasonable. After my clean install (wiping the backup partition) and installing COMODO firewall, AVG, and AdAware, and HL2, Vista, and Media Direct (not in that order) I have about 188 gig left. so you're about right.

 

hmm maybe your correct, I DO have half life 2 orange box, oblivion+ oblivion shivering isles, microsoft office 2007 ultimate, spybot search and destroy, and logon studio vista installed, in addition to media direct/itunes/quicktime/media player. Even so, in light of the aforementioned
programs, I wish that windows could direct me to what EXACTLY is taking up 46gb.

 

Orange Box takes up around 20 GB alone.