Windows has hidden about 40gb of hard disk space?

I currently got a new 250gb harddrive (229 in windows) and after reinstalling pretty much everything I only had 122 gb left! I thought this was pretty weird so I looked at all the main folders in my c drive and after calculating how much each of them fill, I found out I've only used about 70 gb, so about 40 gb is unaccounted for.

Anyone know where the rest is hidden?

 

This is probably because of the confusion between Byte and bit

 

I doubt it. Since the 40 gb would be accounted for anyways. I am perfectly aware of the byte&bit thing.

 

run disk cleanup. i bet you will recover a lot of that back. probably your old system files that the installation saved.

Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tool > Disk Cleanup

Make sure you check all the little boxes to delete.

 

Also make sure you're tallying the "size on disk" numbers. Remember that allocation unit sizes come into play here. If you have a lot of small files, they could be taking up more space than the sum of their actual file sizes.

 

irst of all, your approach of adding up the file sizes don't work. I have experienced it before. The amount of data in desktop and documents and settings folder is deceptive. And forget the nonsense.

To be sure, follow this;

go to the control panel, select administrative tools, computer management, disk mnagement.

now check if you have any unpartitioned space. If you do not have any such problems, then it is working well and good. Nothing to worry about.

 

have you checked your C:\ docs and settings\temp file to see if all the program installing and other misc things has left your temp file loaded with b.s....

 

volume shadow copy storage (system restore & previous versions)
recycle bin
pagefile
hibernate file

 

Yep,hibernation takes as much space as the ammount of RAM you have, and system restore eats quite a lot too.
40GB , I dunno, but these 2 and the paging file can take quite a big ammount.
Also,leftover installation files, run CCleaner and see how that works.

 

This program should help you find out where the HD space is going: http://windirstat.info/

What do you mean by reinstalling pretty much everything? If you reinstalled software that was already on your computer, you might have duplicate files.

Edit: Treesize Pro can also help visualize your HD: http://www.jam-software.com/treesize/screenshots.shtml#1