What is using up all my disk space?

running Vista premium 32

i just got a new laptop and installed a few basic programs, none to my knowledge are viruses or have any spyware/adware (have AVG, BOClean, Malwarebytes, Spybot, Defender, & Comodo Firewall protecting my system)

just opened up my computer today and saw that i have about 80-100gb of data that i cannot locate on my hard drive.. and i only have 12gb of 160gb of space left on my 1 week old laptop.

rundown of folders in C drive:
-DRIVERS: 4.97 MB
-Icons: 1.24 kb
-Intel: 38.4 kb
-mfg: 256 kb
-Preflogs: 0 bytes
-Program Files: 3.11 gb
-SWShare: 1.31 mb
-SWTOOLS: 1.24 gb
-Users: 15.5gb (contains my personal media; photos, music,movies)
-Windows: 10.6 gb

Totals: est~31 gb used of 137gb partition, should have about 100gb free space.


settings:
-drive is indexed for faster searching
-drive is enabled for writing cache
-drive is enabled for "advance performance" (HDD -> policies -> tick both boxes)

is there ANY way besides searching through every folder in my C drive to find what files are taking up all my space?

 

It could be the system restore. You have installed a lot of things and each time the system restore creates a backup.

 

good point have a look through your system restores , interesting because i thought they overwrite each other

 

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

 

Nope, only when they exceed the amount of disk space set aside for System Restore to use. This can be changed. Out of the box, I think it is 15% of the drive.

Gary

 

Yes, its 15% of the drive.

It can be resized very easily by doing the following in the command prompt window (running as administrator)

vssadmin Resize ShadowStorage /For=your drive letter /On=your drive letter C: /MaxSize=xxxGB

Typically, the drive letter for /For and /On is the same..

 

Hehe, sorry to get off subject, but I had a look at that thread Andy, and could you tell me where I could find that theme?

EDIT: The thread in your signature, not the one in the post.

 

That does sound a bit odd. Was all the space there when you first got your laptop?

I know the Recycle Bin takes up something like 10% of the hard drive. So does System restore. Temporary internet files takes up a chunk too.

 

Aye - http://sweatyfish.deviantart.com/art/ProjectX-2-97131568

 

run disk cleanup .. type cleanup in start searchbox .. i once had 30gb of temp files after updating to sp1 and installing some drivers adn misc stuff

also cleanup will remove older restore points

 

Hey I had the same issue, it is probably a problem with the Lenovo backup system (I have a T500, Vista Home Preium 32bit). The system is only supposed to use 15GB, but when I tried erasing my one and only backup, I suddenly freed up about 75GB. I then wiped Windows' own backup and recovered all of the unknown space. Then I let windows create a new restore point -- it is supposed to use up some space.

Hope that helps. Not sure what the problem is with the lenovo system; my old T43 never did anything like this.

ben