Hard drive trouble with the XPS M1530

I been having some trouble with my hard drive. As of today mourning i had 125gb of free space. I didnt download anything and it has fell to 118gb, I feel that my hard drive constantly decreases. (it was 130 something a week ago). I have tried a system restore but the comp is unable to do it. It states it cant do it because The disk OS (C has errors, "windows has detected file system corruption on OS (C . You must check the disk errors before it can be restored".

It prompts me to check for disk errors, and gives me two choices 1) automatically fix file system errors 2) scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors, i have tried both of them, it then it states "windows cant check the disk while it is in use, DO you want to check for hard disk errors the next time you start your comp"

I then click on the schedule disk check, and the prompt disappears and dose not schedule a check. I restart the computer and nothing happens. Does anyone know what is going on? sorry for being such a newbie.

 

Its the system restore at work... delete the system restore points except the latest one...

system protection > delete system restore points except the most recent..

And to see the amount of space being used up, open command prompt as administrator, and type "vssadmin list shadowstorage" and you can see there the space used for the volume shadow copy...

Also for the hard disk errors, run a disk checkup or error checking when doing nothing.. or you can use the dell builtin in disk check utility from the dell diagnostics.. this u can access either during bootup or from the diagnostics n utilities CD...

And try a defragmentation too after the errors are fixed.. I recommend JkDefrag.. no install needed.. just download it and run it..

And download HDtune and run a check....

 

And some other useful links >>

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/tutorials/tutorial142.html

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/tutorials/tutorial143.html#delete

http://bertk.mvps.org/html/vista.html

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555367

 

please don't defrag your hard drive when there are still errors... defragging will not smooth over file system errors in a way that is convenient to you!!

 

wow thanks it went from 117 to 153 gb of free space... is that normal?

 

Yep.. its normal... just clean it up once a week and you would regain your space..

as an advance information, you can reduce the volume shadow copy size...

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/reduce-system-restores-disk-usage-in-vista/

Another way is completely turning system restore off, if you are making regular backup' of your data and the complete PC onto an external storage or hard disk... but I would recommend having system restore on for a while before turning it off completely.. and rather turn it off or just delete the points once a week.. not a big hassle...

 

117 to 153, you must have never cleaned them out. How long have you had the M1530?

 

AFAIK and IMHO, It doesnt necessarily have to be a long time before you drive fills up with system restore points... system restore points are made every time you install something... and these days there are many program' that, before they install or uninstall, they make a restore point by default... so if you are just setting up your comp, getting in the stuff you need, installing all the programs you need, there are lots of restore points bound to be made... Also I must note that once u have a restore point, it does not make a restore point fo the whole system.. for those interested, please check the links I gave, particularly the bertk.msv.... link, for knowing when system restore points are created, for what... and so on.. also if there are no changes, sometimes there are no restore points made.. the task just runs but you won't find anything.. and this was told to me by MS esc. engineer too.. Anyways....

 

yea, i got my computer a month ago. Didn't clean it out before

 

Yup, I probably see Revo creating System Restore points at least once or twice a day, not to mention Windows doing it. I cleaned mine out a few days ago, and regained about 10 gigs after having it for less than 2 weeks.