SW_Preload (C:)

Hi Guys,

Look i have a new lenovo R61. I am not all that computer savvy but have noticed the hard drive (sw preload??) is now saying only 13.5GB free of 142GB.

The line showing this has also gone red??

Is this a problem?? I have uninstalled a heap of what i thought was garbage from the comp yet it keeps dropping in free space??

Any help on this matter would be greatly appreciated!

chiefa

 

if your not sure of what is taking up all the space, download WinDirStat. you can use this to graphically view what files are taking up all your space. very handy to have in your toolbox.

 

it says my windows is taking up 16 gigs.

and users is taking up 10 gigs.

programs is 8 but that should be normal, but the other 2 dont seem right.

 

paging file.

 

I bet it's Shadow Storage. It's from a shadow copy service (or system restore.) Lenovo is likely to set the maximum storage space as UNBOUNDED, so you are end up like this.

All you have to do is resize that maximum space, then your space will be back.
start | type “cmd” | right-click on cmd.exe and tap Run as administrator

Code:

c:\> vssadmin list shadowstorage 

to see how it set -- should be UNBOUNDED

Code:

c:\> VSSAdmin Resize ShadowStorage /For=C: /On=C: /MaxSize=15GB

set your new maxsize as you want.

For more info here

 

It's likely that the space is being taken up by system restore. System restore saves metadata and shadow copies of your operating system and programs so that you can restore the computer to an earlier time in case you messed up a program installation, etc. You can shut off system restore and then delete the restore points, which should give you a good 6GB back and hopefully stop taking up more space.

Right Click "Computer" -> Properties -> System Restore -> Uncheck all drives.

Right Click "SW_Preload" -> Properties -> Disk Cleanup -> Options/Advanced -> Delete Shadows/System Restore

The button names might be a little different since I don't remember the exact details.

Otherwise, flush your temporary internet files through your browser.

 

Check your Think Vantage Rescue and Recovery program. Make sure it is not making auto back ups. You can delete all back ups if there are any.

 

if you try the WinDirStat it takes all guess work out. you can click the picture and narrow down directly to the file. its really easy to use.

 

Ok Gents,

Cheers for your help. I downloaded that program and it is saying that 86% is taken up by "unknown"...6% windows etc.

What do we reckon this unkown may be??

cheers

 

show some screenshots. snap a screenshot of disk management and one of the windirstat results.

 

Hidden pr0n? j/k

If it's that big, it's gotta be backup data.

 

Thinkvantage Rescue and Recovery is the only program I can think of that will create such a big backup file.

 

something clearly is not right. it would have had to backup the entire pc (14%) give or take about 5 times to use that much space. your machine is abducted. or your just the lucky winner.

 

I'm having a similar issue where there seems to be a lot more space taken than should be. I ran those commands and set the max to 10 gigs, as it was set to 26 before. Didn't change much as there were about 8 gigs in shadow files, but this at least prevents it from getting much bigger than that in the future. I ran that WinDirStat program and it says my C: drive totals 45.5 GB. I have the 200 GB HD. Here's a quick breakdown.

Before anything was loaded on by myself my HD had 180 gigs free. I created a 40 gig partition for Ubuntu. That brings me to about 140 gigs for Vista. With 45 gigs used, that should bring me to around 95 gigs free, right? Well I only have 60 gigs free. There's a good chunk missing here and I can't find it.

EDIT: Turned off windows system restore and did some disk cleanup and freed up about 10 more gigs netting me about 74 gigs now. A little better, but there seems to be about 20 gigs still missing.

When My Computer says my C drive has a total of 139 gigs, is that sans the rescue and recovery partition or is that in there somewhere? That would explain things . . .but I'm pretty sure that is seen as separate.