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my hard drive says it’s about full (230 gig)

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I have a 230 gig hard drive that says it’s got 190 gig on it . I can only verify 85 gig when I add up the c drive with all hidden files showing-where is the 100 gig of data hidden? Thanks-

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In reply to my hard drive says it’s about full (230 gig)

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Need more information

In reply to my hard drive says it’s about full (230 gig)

More information needed. What OS? Any other partitions? You run virus and malware scans? Run any hard drive tests?

Have you accounted for all of the …

In reply to my hard drive says it’s about full (230 gig)

System Area files (reserved for the system alone)
Hibernation file
Pagefile
Recycle Bin
possible Fragmentation (which can eat into space)

Depending on how many Users are listed – each one can have its own Recycle Bin.

Have you checked in Drive Management yet? You may only be seeing the space available in one partition – there may be more than one.

Any more is hard to guess without knowing which operating system you are running with.

And

In reply to Have you accounted for all of the …

System Volume Information in some Windows versions. Always shows as 0 bytes.

Perhaps System Restore as well? Or is that in the same place?

I ‘knew’ there was another one …

In reply to And

Just couldn’t remember its sodding name! 😀

Try windirstat

In reply to my hard drive says it’s about full (230 gig)

Run Windows Explorer (windows key + e), go to Tools, Options and View, tick “Show Hidden Files and Folders”, untick “Hide Protected Operating System files” and “Hide extensions for known file types”. Then click apply to all folders.

Download WinDirStat and check through the folders for any large files in C:\WINDOWS or any repetitive files. Turn on the Show Free Space under Options.

http://windirstat.info/wds_current_setup.exe

Another way to find wasted disk space is to use the Disk Cleanup tool by following these steps:

1. Open My Computer, right-click Local Disk, and then click Properties.

2. On the General tab, click the Disk Cleanup button. Disk Cleanup will spend a few minutes examining your disk.

3. The Disk Cleanup dialog box will open and you can make your selections.

4. Select the desired check boxes in the Files to Delete list.

5. Select ?Disk Clean Up and other options?. In the ?Other options? press on ?Clean? for ?System Restore”, and then click OK

6. If you have more than one hard disk, repeat this process for each hard disk listed in My Computer.

Are you using any third party backup software that may be keeping files on the drive?

Also check this link.

TR Dojo: Prevent Windows Vista System Restore from filling up your hard drive

http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/itdojo/?p=1026

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