Where did all my Hard drive space go!!!

So I recently sent my computer to Dell for repairs. It is an Inspiron 1520. It came back, after a graphic card replacement working like new. I decided to erase my HDD and return it to factory settings for the heck of it, after all I didn't have anything important in it except a bunch of music I don't really listen to anymore.

So I return it to factory settings, re install vista, re install the drivers for my web cam, microphone, and my graphic drivers from the Nvidia Website.

I begin to do all of the Windows Vista updates, and I notice...first of all my HDD says its only 148GB

My first question is

Why does my HDD say its only 148GB if its supposed to be 160GB.

Then I notice that out of those 148GB I only have 108GB of open space...what the heck. This is all I have installed in my computer currently.

Windows vista home premium + updates.
Nvidia Drivers (about 2.5GB)
Avast Anti virus (Less than 1GB)
Open office (less than 1GB)
Google earth (less than 1GB)
Windows Live Messanger
Ccleaner (less than 500MB)
Google Chrome
Other Misc, drivers, webcam, microphone, monitor, basic drivers that do basic functions, and my sound blaster audio drivers.

This is all that is currently in my computer after factory settings. Why has 40GB of my HDD space been used up without me even knowing where it is. It seems like every day I have less and less space in my HDD, and all I do is hit the update button on vista *which by the way is trying to download a failed update over and over again without success*

So what gives, whats going on with my HDD, is there a program that can detect where the heck all of my space is at? Maybe some one who can please coach me on what I can do about this to get some of my storage back. It seems to be shrinking by GB's every single day and I don't install anything new!

 

A 160 GB (decimal) drive has 148 binary GBs.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=167983

 

There is no missing space.... 160 decimal and 148 binary are the exact same quantity....

 

As it has been said, you are missing space due to decimal vs binary, but if you where all your other space is after the 148GB, download and run "WinDirStat".

 

160000000000 byte in gigabyte

even google can compute it and it shows how much hdd makers and ssd makers lie to us

 

except OCZ

with the Vertex series

 

Decimal vs binary accounts for only part of the space loss. I'm guessing that the Vista installation etc. takes out another 20 gig and that leaves your missing 20 gig.

This is almost certainly due to shadow copies. When Vista has system restore enabled, copies of files are taken before they are updated. Only folk with Vista business or ultimate can restore them, but all versions create them.

It's an appalling security hole.

Probably the easiest way to check is to delete all but the most recent restore point. If that gets most of your space back, you've found the problem. You could switch system restore off but that can be useful. Limiting the amount of space taken up by shadow copies is very fiddly.

 

http://www.mydigitallife.info/2007/...rage-space-usage-size-in-vista-with-vssadmin/

Limiting the space SR can use is probably your best bet. It's better than having to delete all but the most recent copies every few weeks or so.