Working with small hard drives, 10GB seems to vanish.

[~Darkseeker~]

well, in the root of my %systemdrive%, there are 4 folders (ATI, Program Files, WINDOWS and Docs & settings). When highlighted and totalled, they take up around 5GB. However, looking at the properties of my disk in My Computer, im showing around 15GB as used space. Where does the other 10GB go?

 

[cboucher]

I don't know about all 10GB, but some of that might be being used by the page file. Also, do you have System Restore points enabled? That could take up quite a bit of room...

 

[~Darkseeker~]

ah, looking at system restore it was using 4GB for restore points. that explains a bit.

i dropped the size of my pagefile to 2.5gb.

really squeezing to try and fit XP and 7 (x64) onto the same drive here. lol

 

[Indigo]

Yes, paging file, system restore points, temporary files, etc. Get yourself a utility like WinDirStat - Windows Directory Statistics and CCleaner - Download to help solve problems with disk shrink. Also, go into your system properties and change the system restore slider to use only 2% or so of your disk space, and that should help out as well.


Edit - replied at the same time.

XP and 7 on the same drive (hopefully different partitions) is an exercise in and of itself. XP fortunately doesn't need much space compared to 7, but I've found that there's very little reason for me to hang on to XP anymore.

 

[cboucher]

I would totally disable system restore points all together. They are pretty much useless if all you want on the drive is the OS and you're comfortable with reinstalling every once in a while. I like to do that anyway...

 

[~Darkseeker~]

i have a 40GB 'e-server' WD drive with OS and stuff on it right now, and a 320GB WD caviar blue that my games and stuff are installed onto

i take regular backups to my external anyway, ive probably little use for restore points.

 

[cboucher]

To be brutally honest, I have never had any computer that I have ever worked on be "saved" by a System Restore point. Reinstalling always seems to work, though. LOL

 

[~Darkseeker~]

oh god, i forgot about XP's inability to manage disks properly ±_±

 

[Indigo]

Yeah, for a while I also disabled system restore. If you're comfortable with it, there's nothing wrong with it. I can bring a system back from the dead using other tools besides a reinstall anyway, much like many others.

 

[~Darkseeker~]

anyone know of a tool that i can use to shrink an XP partition without having to make a live CD, burn it, master it, boot from it, wait ages, reboot and stuff?