What The heck is happening??

uhm so here is my issue. i have just reinstalled vista and the hard drive says 22gb is used...but when i get the properties of the folders that make up C drive it says only 13 gb is used.... also every once in a while that i check the hard drive it has gotten used up more...

now im not a computer dummy but this has never happened to me...

here is a picture of the hdd itself and the folders that are in it..

someone has to know whats going on

 

I would bet it is Vista making system restore points and/or vista indexing your files that is increasing the space that you are using.

As for the difference between the C drive and the properties, since you reinstalled vista did you delete your windows.old file?

 

where is the old vista file placed?

 

it could also be maybe a virus taking up your space. Make sure you have virus protection.

 

It's not a virus, it's Vista's Shadow Copy. If you want, you can reduce the space allocated to it, or disable it completely.

http://lifehacker.com/software/windows-vista/vista-tip--reduce-system-restore-disk-usage-254365.php

 

that looks like what is happening , i tried to lower the max space to 1GB according to the command on that page but it tells me i dont have the correct permission. i am the admin what is going on?
isn't there a way in vista to lower the space without the command promt?

 

Did you not get rid of your Dell Diagnostics/Recovery/MediaDirect partitions?

 

You have to right click on the command line, and choose the run as administrator option from the drop down menu.

 

i didn't install MD on my second reinstall seeing i didnt have any use for it. however when i was choosing the partition to install vista on, it didnt let me deleate the partition that is 3GB...it just said unlocated space. i gues its just empty space now. i prefer the wndows media center over the dell program.

om man you are the best. REP FOR YOU!
i am back to 13.3 GB of HDD space...i was going insane. i am totally new to vista.
you think 1Gb is enough for restore points? i read that if it hits the max it will deleat the older points.

thankkkks

 

Personally I don't care for Vista's Shadow Copy, so I usually disable it completely. Any important data I keep backups of anyway, and if I delete something, it's because I want it gone, so it sort of defeats the purpose if the OS is going to keep a "shadow copy" of it taking up my HDD space.

However, if you do intend on using it for restore points and undelete purposes, I recommend allocating at least 5GB to it. After all, if the HDD starts to fill up and you need the space, you can always reduce the allocation later.

 

if you want to become the "real" admin all the time (only suggested if you know what to avoid as this will make the uac no longer function this will always give you complete control just like xp did... you can do this:

For Windows Vista Home Basic/Home Premium:

1- Click Start, and type "cmd" in the search area, right click on "Command Prompt" and select 'Run as Administrator".

2- In the command prompt type "net users Administrator /active'" (Note the capital "A" in Administrator) and press Enter, you will get a confirmation as "The command completed successfully".

3- Click Start, and type "regedit" in the search area and click Enter, navigate to: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System]
Double click on "FilterAdministratorToken" and set it to "0"

*************************************

Now log-off, and you'll see new account named "Administrator" is available, click on it to login.

Now you are the master of your domain! I recommend if you're going to use this method is to apply it as soon as you do a fresh install of Windows, so you can simply delete whatever administrator you've created in the setup process, and make this one the "real" administrator for your PC, also you can rename this new admin account or change its password like any other account from "User Accounts" in the Control Panel.

A last note: Please apply this procedures only if you know what you're doing. Disabling security features in the operating system is not something recommended to the average Joe, and for sure I won't be held accountable for any damaging happens to your system or files resulting from running a full administrator account all the time.


hope that helps..

 

Did you first select Show hidden files and folders and untick Hide protected operating system files in Folder options ? Because without that the hyberfil.sys (= RAM size) and pagefile.sys (=< RAM size) wont be considered when you select all files of C:\ to view properties. Those two files alone will roughly add another 4GB or more (if you have 2GB of RAM).