Really, how DO you restore HD memory?

Is it really so difficult to restore HD memory? This should concern everyone using a computor, and so the procedure for doing it should have been made user-friendly by the manufacturer. But apparently it hasn't, at least not for Sony's computors.

I have tried every procedure available in the user programs, but to no avail.
The Local Disk's free memory started out at about 205GB. After downloaded files it sank to 175GB free memory.

I have now removed the files, emptied the Recycle Bin, have run CCleaner, run System Restore, run Disk Cleanup, run Antivirus search, turned the computor on and off. But when looking in the folders Computor/ Local Disk (C: ) nothing has been restored. Rather, after having turned on the computor again, another 2GB seem to have been lost, for it now says 173GB!! "And Thank you Very much for your careful effort in restoring memory! We the computor appreciate it!" This is insane.

What more can be asked of me to do as a user? I mean, how difficult can it get??

I can't be alone in this. It must happen to others. What's the deal? Is it to be excpected that HD memory shrinks more and more, and can't be restored?

 

Try downloading the free trial for "TreeSize Professional". It really helps track down what's using up all your HD space. I doubt there's anything wrong with the hard drive itself - there just may be some files hiding from you that are eating up all the HD space.

 

You mean Hard disk space? Well, Windows' system restore points add up. If your using Vista, it takes this even further by automatically creating backup copies of every file-called Shadow Copies that are only accessible by the user in Business and above. You said you ran System Restore? Do you mean that you cleared the restore points?

 

Have you tried Disk Defragmenter? That is what it is SUPPOSED to do, recapture free space for your HD and make it usable again. Give it a shot and let us know if it works...

 

First a simple correction in terminology. It is hard drive space not hard drive memory. I know it sounds like nit picking, but using the right term, especially if you are searching the INTERNET for possible solutions will help you a lot.

Scened, this has NOTHING to do with Sony. What you are seeing is common to ALL manufacturers machines. Read on.

Now, that aside, more than likely the missing hard drive SPACE, is being taken up by System Restore's shadow copies. Don't panic. This is a GOOD thing. These shadow copies are there to keep backup copies of your files as well as system files. The backup copies of system files are made any time you make changes, like installing new applications, installing new drivers, deleting applications, removing drivers etc. Vista will keep copies of all of these things so that latter if you realize, oh man, that last change is NOT working you don't have to worry you can use system restore and these shadow copies to get things back to where they were at a particular point in time.

Vista dedicates a certain fixed percentage of the hard drive for this purpose. Once it uses that much space, it will throw away the oldest shadow copies as it needs to create new ones. So it will not overrun your hard drive at any point in the future. Now if you really MUST control this there is a way to reduce the amount of space Vista sets aside. Also it is possible to clear all of these restore points except for the last one taken. But that only temporarily returns the space. As long as system restore/shadow copy is doing what is supposed to do it will wind up reusing that space.

(There is one circumstance where I will clear the restore points, that is when I about to image a hard partition and want to minimize the image size.)

Gary

 

No, that is not what a disk defrag is supposed to do. All a disk defrag does is place all of the various fragments of one file that may be spread all over the hard drive into one contiguous part of the drive. Optionally, it may also defragment the empty space as well, so it too is in one contiguous space. But it does NOT recapture any space at all. The amount of free space will be identical before and after a defrag.

Gary

 

Thank you for all your input!

So, it all seems to come down to that the files I thought I had thrown away, actually remain in the system as shadow files. As long as this shadow file compartment will stop growing at a certain percentage, and start throwing away old files for added new ones, and won't eat up all the HD space, I guess it will be OK. As long as it doesn't slow up the system. I can see that this shadow file system is good for security in case of very important files, and at the same time it seems a waste of space for temporary "consumer" files I have definitely decided to throw away.


...I don't know if I cleared any restore points. No I don't think so, at least not intentionally. I just ran the System Restore program, and it had no such choices.

 

I am not 100% certain on this but I don't think that shadow copies of user files are kept for deletions. I do know it does keep them for "versioning" of user files. It really doesn't slow things down, so don't worry about that issue.

The ONLY way to remove older restore points is through disk cleanup.

Gary

 

Shawdow copy only retores system files and registry settings, not personal files.

 

Not true. That was the case on XP but under Vista it's use was extended. See this link: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/features/details/shadowcopy.mspx

That clarifies the question I had about manual deletion of files too. But note that this feature only exists in the Ultimate, Business and Enterprise versions of Vista.

Gary

 

I have Vista Premium. So it's no longer shadow files that's the cause of my computor's missing HD space?

 

I was talking about the system restore feature and not the backup feature in business, enterprise, and ultimate editions of vista.

 

Hibernation takes around 2 GB of space.

If you delete all the old system restore points (including the most recent) you will gain a maximum of 15% of disk space.

Page file takes some space too.

Please search from the top search box. There are 100's of threads regarding this.

 

No it still applies to you. But the only thing being saved via Shadow Copies is system changes. Driver changes, application changes, registry changes etc.

System restore uses shadow copies to keep track of all of those sorts of things. And these Shadow Copies will still take up a certain percentage of your hard drive.

Gary

 

I realize that, but I posted the info in case someone else came along and thought that meant that the ONLY thing Shadow copies was for was to facilitate System Restore. I just wanted to be sure it was clear it had this secondary function as well.

Plus until the last couple of messages it was not clear which version of Vista eloidan actually had, I thought it MIGHT have applied to him.

One more point, the "backup feature" is not what was being discussed in the article I linked to. The "backup feature" is something else entirely, see the attached image. The feature I linked to, named "Restore Previous Versions", works just like System Restore, but it allows for retrival of USER files via shadow copies. The backup feature does not use shadow copies.

Gary

 

Gary I was about to mean "Previous versions" using shadow copies wrongly coined as "backup".

 

I don't think the files were system changes. It was 30GB worth of HD space from music and movie files, which has not been restored after I deleted them. Are they in the shadow copy compartment? Or what else?

Windows Help and Support really is well developed and has answers for just about anything. But this thing about HD space they have missed.

 

Thanks for all help.

Sorry about my fretting. It's just that these abstract amoebus functionings of computors drive me a little mad. They never seem to arrive at a point where you finally have a definite secure answer, as with solid grappable things in life.

 

Apparently shadow copies of user files is turned on in ALL versions of Vista, but not all versions have the ability to restore user files from the shadow copy. Seem pretty odd but that is the way it is implemented. BUT there is some hope for ALL vista users. Check this link: http://www.shadowexplorer.com/

Gary

 

I went into the Backup Restore Center and switched off the restore points for the Local Disk (C: ), and ran disk cleanup. And I managed to get the missing HD space back. The free space soared up to 206 GB!

Just to be on the safe side I turned the restore points back on afterwards. But now I know what to do if it gets low again.

Thanks again! Les Tokar's text was also very helpful!

 

Although I honestly don't notice that downloads and general performance of the system, works any faster from this and other tweaks.