Where did my hard drive space goto?

[Iverson3k]

Alright on my female companions computer I notice that it only has 2 gigs free... But what Im wondering is what the hell is going on??? I check the folders and see all of them only add up to 16 gig... Its a 70 gig hard drive...
She is running Windows Vista Basic but I am so confused on where it all went..
Anyone?

[binky]

On my new vista comp recovery takes up a little over a gig, theres a backup set of 66 gigs. Are you sure you have 'view hidden and system files' checked in folder options??

[Killswitch]

System restore, page files, and the recycling bin can take out a big "unknown" chunk. Or.... maybe the hard drive is going on a permanent vacation?

[Iverson3k]

well her computer is brand new... So the hd shouldnt be dying already... How do I check how much the system is using for system restore...

[Hans]

If it's brand new it usually has a recovery partition, used to recover when the OS needs to be reinstalled. This should be about 10 gigs.
70 + 10 = 80 gigs, which sounds normal. (There's no such thing as a 70 gig HD)

Gigs on a HD are calculated differently then gigs in internet explorer. (HD manufacturers are actually calculating their gigs wrong).

On top of that, the swap file can easily grow to 10 gig, and your hibernate file can get really big over time.
And then System Restore takes up a bunch of space, so does your recycling bin if you do not empty it.

Try running disk cleanup and see how much you can reclaim.

[Iverson3k]

disk cleanup did not help... /ubbthreads/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/frown.gif

[Hans]

Try disk management. Not sure where it's located in Vista, but it will show you the actual disk size, partition sizes etc...

[Iverson3k]

how do I find the hibernate thing? Because her computer is hibernating often.

[stupefied]

There is a hidden file in the root of 'local disk c' labelled hiberfil.sys which is reserved for hibernation. If you're not sure how to show hidden files enter 'control folders' in the search and press enter. On the second tab there are options to show hidden/system files etc.

[tired-n-cranky]

Try this program.

http://www.jam-software.com/treesize/index.shtml

[filthy]

Use ccleaner, will remove up to 4 gb's of temp files...vista is bad for that, and if you disable system restore you will gain a ton of stuff. those two things saved me 10+ Gb's of space