Hard Drive filled.

[SirStev0]

Hello all.


So here is my trouble. I have a 320gb hard drive and I just got a message that I am running low on space. I have been looking around and trying to figure out how the hell I filled up that amount already.

To start off, I have a Lenovo Y530. The computer should have a 320 HDD.

I took a quick look and according to "My Computer" I have two drives Local Disk (C with 254 GB and Lenovo (D with 29.1 GB. Now I have never claimed to be good at math or understand computers that well but 254 + 29.1 =/= 320. Of course, I could be mistaken.

Now here comes my next dilemma, I start snooping around because I can not for the life of me figure out how I filled up even 254 GB let alone 320. So according, again, to "My Computer" I have 21.8 GB remaining of the 254 and 27.4 of the 29.1.

The D: basically only contains a back up of the drivers and operating system to be used with Lenovo's reset buttons. On the C drive is everything else I have on my computer. I actually went through and deleted all my old games in order to open up the 21.8 that I have on there now. The only major amount of HD I am taking up is in my documents. I have about 150 GB of Tv, music, comics, porn, and movies. I also have about 8 GB of school stuff (yeah one year of med school).

So now, math time again 150 + 8 =/= 220 . I have heard vista is bloated but, that just can't be it.

To be honest, I am posting on here because I am so frankly confused by this whole thing. My last laptop had 40 GB on it and ran windows XP and I honestly don't think I ever came close to 30GB on it. Of course I didn't have a bunch of movies and stuff ripped on that guy, but still I am just frankly shocked and confused as to where all this missing memory is....

Any help would be very much appreciated. I am so confused by the whole thing I don't even know where to begin. Something just doesn't seem right. The math just doesn't add up.



Does this sound right?

 

[starams5]

Vista has a system dir called "sysxs" that's constantly expanding but I don't think it would expand that much. There was also a virus a couple of years ago that had a way multiplying files causing the HDD to fill up. Try this, download the trial version of TreeSize Pro and see whats hogging up space.
https://www.jam-software.de/cu...fc368a06f4320884e877c7

 

[SirStev0]

Originally posted by: starams5
Vista has a system dir called "sysxs" that's constantly expanding but I don't think it would expand that much. There was also a virus a couple of years ago that had a way multiplying files causing the HDD to fill up. Try this, download the trial version of TreeSize Pro and see whats hogging up space.
<a target=_blank class=ftalternatingbarlinklarge href="https://www.jam-software.de/customers/downloadTrial.php?article_no=101&language=EN&PHPSESSID=500c452560fc368a06f4320884e877c7">https://www.jam-software.de......8a06f4320884e877c7</a>

So far everything I am reading about TreeSize Pro says that it is only good up to Win XP. I am rocking Vista 64 and on top of the million and one other programs that don't support it, it looks like TreeSize won't be an option.

 

[starams5]

I'm using it on Win7 and its working just fine.

 

[corkyg]

OK - but, in the first place, a pristine "320" GB drive is actually about 298 GB in real terms. So, use that as the total. Then you are really not far off.

254+29.1= 283.1. That leaves only about 15 GB unaccounted for. That can be consumed by NTFS overhead.

 

[SirStev0]

Okay. So I took a look at TreeSize and now I am even more confused. It is telling me I have a 254 GB C drive but that it is only 198.8 GB in size.

Sense has still not been found.

 

[starams5]

Originally posted by: corkyg
OK - but, in the first place, a pristine "320" GB drive is actually about 298 GB in real terms. So, use that as the total. Then you are really not far off.

254+29.1= 283.1. That leaves only about 15 GB unaccounted for. That can be consumed by NTFS overhead.

If that's what he is referring to then you're right on the money. I have 3x 320Gb RAID0 which shows as 894.27Gb (298Gb ea.), there is nothing you can do about that.

 

[starams5]

Originally posted by: SirStev0
Okay. So I took a look at TreeSize and now I am even more confused. It is telling me I have a 254 GB C drive but that it is only 198.8 GB in size.

Sense has still not been found.

Go to "MY Computer" where your drives are and leave the Treesize window open. Compare the two, I checked mine and they are the same.

 

[SirStev0]

Originally posted by: corkyg
OK - but, in the first place, a pristine "320" GB drive is actually about 298 GB in real terms. So, use that as the total. Then you are really not far off.

254+29.1= 283.1. That leaves only about 15 GB unaccounted for. That can be consumed by NTFS overhead.

To be honest, I assumed there might be some number fudging but selling something as 320 GB when it is actually almost 40 GB less than that is pretty sucky. I guess I just didn't realize how bad it is.

Like I said, my old laptop was only 40GB total. In essence you are telling me I am losing out on that computer worth of space.

 

[SirStev0]

Originally posted by: starams5

Originally posted by: SirStev0
Okay. So I took a look at TreeSize and now I am even more confused. It is telling me I have a 254 GB C drive but that it is only 198.8 GB in size.

Sense has still not been found.

Go to "MY Computer" where your drives are and leave the Treesize window open. Compare the two, I checked mine and they are the same.

They look about the same, but this still isn't making a whole lot of sense.

Tree is telling me I am using about 200 GB on the C: drive. I have about 30 GB left over. The drive, AFTER accounting for GB lose as Corky pointed out, is 254 GB. Where the hell is the other 20 GB.

 

[Intexity]

ok well i believe the answer is in the translation. 1 Gig is actually 1.024 real gigs unfortunately this extra .024 gets left off so if you take the 320 divide by 1.024 the actual size comes up as 312.5 gigs of actual space. Yes I believe this is false advertising. Find a lawyer start a class action I will sign,

 

[bruceb]

First thing to do is clear out all your temp files. Next turn off System Restore and reboot. Now you can renable System Restore if you want, but only set it at about 5% of total space. Now recheck your drive useage. It should have much more free space.

Temps are in: C:\Windows\Temp ... C:\Docs & Settings\User Name\Local Settings\Temp & Temp Internet Files
Be sure to check all the users on the machine. Anything in these folders can go as windows will recreate any file
or folder it needs.

 

[Pegun]

Do you have vmware installed? VMWare has a number of files that are constantly expanded, even when it is uninstalled from the system. I believe there's a directory in either application settings or local settings.

 

[corkyg]

Originally posted by: Intexity
ok well i believe the answer is in the translation. 1 Gig is actually 1.024 real gigs unfortunately this extra .024 gets left off so if you take the 320 divide by 1.024 the actual size comes up as 312.5 gigs of actual space. Yes I believe this is false advertising. Find a lawyer start a class action I will sign,

That is correct. This fact has been around for over 20 years, and is common knowledge among technophiles. It is simply the difference between engineering specs and marketing specs. Marketeers can say 1000 MB is a GB. But, technically it takes 1024 MB to make a true GB. A 320 GB drive is a marketing term - the actual technical size is about 298+. A 250GB drive is actually about 232+, and a 160 is about 149+.

Yeah - you can shut down indexing, system restore, shadow copies, etc., etc., but you lose capability and flexibility. Basically, you need a bigger drive.

 

[starams5]

He can also shut down hibernation if he don't need it: Right-click on cmd in the Programs list and select Run As Administrator Type "powercfg -h off" without quotes and press ENTER.

 

[InflatableBuddha]

Does Vista use a memory "swap file", as XP does? The swap file is usually 1.5x the size of your physical RAM, so with 4GB, the swap file would be about 6GB.

Oh, and OP, when you say you "deleted" your games, etc., I assume you mean you properly uninstalled them, correct? And bruceb is correct that you can nuke your temp files to clear up some space.

Regardless, it sounds like you need a larger HD.

 

[SirStev0]

Originally posted by: InflatableBuddha
Does Vista use a memory "swap file", as XP does? The swap file is usually 1.5x the size of your physical RAM, so with 4GB, the swap file would be about 6GB.

Oh, and OP, when you say you "deleted" your games, etc., I assume you mean you properly uninstalled them, correct? And bruceb is correct that you can nuke your temp files to clear up some space.

Regardless, it sounds like you need a larger HD.

Just Quoting you because you were last. I will hit everyone at once.


Yes, I did a proper uninstall, disks in and all. I make a habit of cleaning out my temp folder so that has never been an issue. I also don't want to get rid of too much as Lenovo comes disk-less and backups are all done online or on the computer.

Ohh well, I have been duped.

I appreciate everyone's help and all the information. I am already looking for a sexy little TB external so hopefully this will temporarily end my problem. (Though, I am sure it is actually only 800 GB or something ridiculous).

Thanks again all.

 

[daw123]

Originally posted by: SirStev0

Originally posted by: InflatableBuddha
Does Vista use a memory "swap file", as XP does? The swap file is usually 1.5x the size of your physical RAM, so with 4GB, the swap file would be about 6GB.

Oh, and OP, when you say you "deleted" your games, etc., I assume you mean you properly uninstalled them, correct? And bruceb is correct that you can nuke your temp files to clear up some space.

Regardless, it sounds like you need a larger HD.

Just Quoting you because you were last. I will hit everyone at once.


Yes, I did a proper uninstall, disks in and all. I make a habit of cleaning out my temp folder so that has never been an issue. I also don't want to get rid of too much as Lenovo comes disk-less and backups are all done online or on the computer.

Ohh well, I have been duped.

I appreciate everyone's help and all the information. I am already looking for a sexy little TB external so hopefully this will temporarily end my problem. (Though, I am sure it is actually only 800 GB or something ridiculous).

Thanks again all.

My external 1TB HDD is actually 931MB, so this is roughly what you will get as well.

 

[tomt4535]

Did you check system restore, and turn off the "Previous Versions" function? Vista uses the volume shadow copy service to keep a "backup" of changed files, so If you made an unwanted change you can get the good version back. That ate up a ton of my disk usage on my vista machine before I turned it off.