Losing space constantly on Vista

Hi guys,
I have been losing space constantly on my HDD. I am using Vista basic.
My OS drive says it has used up 23 GB, but when I do a property check on all the folders that I have in that drive, it adds up to ~10 GB (including the hidden stuffs). I tried a disk check on that drive, and the damn thing did not boot! Windows had to do its system repair thong before I could boot. Any ideas why I am losing space?

edit ops, mispelt topic heading. can I edit that?

 

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

 

And http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=177741

 

I guess multiple restore points is causing the problem for u....

Go to Control Panel/System/Tasks Pane - System Protection/Uncheck the drive(s) you do not want restore points taken for/Apply.

You can also remove all but the most recent one there.

 

Just be like me, do backsup regularly and turn the feature off completely. If used resource when not needed, and it generate harddrive noises, on top of that it uses up so much diskspace.

 

Sorry, but lots of us here think that is really BAD advice. It only takes up resources WHEN a file is changed, added or deleted. It generates no more hard drive noise than any other disk operation. Is 15% of your hard drive REALLY that much to give up to save yourself from any changes made since your last backup? I am not suggesting backups are a bad thing, they are essential and system restore is no replacement for a good backup regimen. But it is a very good second line of defense.

Gary

 

I have always turned off Windows Recovery/Windows Restore points and never regretted it. However, I do have a backup strategy implemented.

 

Maybe I should explain more on the do backsup regularly, I respect your advice and I can definitely see where you are coming from; it is just that this is how I approach this particular issue. By Regularly backing up I mean, having a set schedule, let's say weekly, backing up the entire drive or just the file that are important to you. Granted, if the files are so important to you that you see the need to sacrifice 15% of your disk space as a second line of defense, you should be backing it up regularly anyways. This brings me to my second point, 15% is a lot of space to waste for a "second line of defense", let's take a 100 gig hard drive as example, that's 15 gigs; a 500 gigs hard drive that is a Stunning 75 gigs of space you set aside just for Vista to use as restore points. Granted no body cares about disk space anymore now that hard drive price is very fair. But Vista constantly doing system restore point even though it doesn't have too, when I have the restore enabled, most if not all of the time the system is semi-idle to idle Vista decided it's a good time to start messing with restore points. Sometimes, I might be wanted to game and I have to wait for Vista to switch the resource. Or at times, Vista just decided when I am surfing it is a good time to set up a restore point, making drive noises. This might be acceptable if it is once a day kind of thing, and if you are in area that doesn't need silence; but as I take my laptop to class, the hard drive noise gets very very noticeable and it is almost constant. Above is my point of view, feel free the disagree with it again.

 

Oh, trust me I do back up regularly. Once a week I do a three way sync between my laptop, my desktop and a share on my Server (which then gets copied to tape). But I will gladly set aside 15% of my hard drive just in case anything should get lost between backups.

You have a very incorrect impression of how system restore works. It does NOT run unless there is an event that requires it to create a restore point. The ONLY time a restore point is created is when you install or uninstall something. The document shadow copy functionality that is now part of system restore, is done only when a document is added, edited or removed. If your machine is churning the disk at other times, it is not because of System Restore.

Gary

 

It's weird. Sometimes I gain hard drive space in my laptop.

 

As you get older the gains in space above your laptop will increase dramatically.

 

what are you talking about? I have no clue. I normally don't live any space above the laptop as the lid will always be closed.

 

As long as you don't need the space, leave the settings alone. Empty space is effectively wasted space. Let the system use it for something useful until you need it for more important things.

 

I like that answer.

 

Me too, but i am kind of a neat freak no matter what my room looks like so i uninstall unneeded things like opera but leave others like system restore.

 

What if you have a restore point then shred a bunch of stuff using a shredder like this http://www.softpedia.com/get/Security/Secure-cleaning/Simple-File-Shredder.shtml then use the system restore what will
happen? I know it says on the shredder site that it can't be recovered using system restore software? Third party?? So would that also include windows restore?

ALSO, Sounds like a good decision to me Calvin!

 

That's a good question. I doubt most "shredding" software has been updated to deal with volume shadow copy, but who knows? I bet sdelete will work well, because that uses the defrag API. Only if other software does that would it be actually secure.

 

Ollie North was busted by network backups of email, after all.