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Geek Culture / hard drive problem with Vista - any suggestions?

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Green Gandalf
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Posted: 7th May 2009 12:24
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As some of you know, I'm now playing with a grand new PC which has Vista 64 bit.

However, in the 10 days or so that I've had it I've noticed that the space available on the hard drive has been reducing at an average of 4Gb a day. If that had been my old PC then it would have been unusable after just one day (it had only 3.5Gb spare space and needed regular cleaning) - however, even this new machine will grind to a halt after about 3 or 4 months at that rate.

I have no idea what is consuming the disk space. I tried the various disk cleanup options and one of them (I don't know which ) gave me back 40Gb of disk space (my old PC which served me well for 8 years had only 20Gb disk space in total!). Something isn't right - or is set to something daft. I thought it might be automatic restore points - but Vista said there weren't any restore points yet.

Does anyone have any idea what could be causing this?
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tatts
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Posted: 7th May 2009 12:34
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Faulty hard drive maybe? I've never heard of this type of thing happening before. Is it actually reducing the total amount of space like say, an 80 gig would be 76 gig the next day? or is it filling up with some type of data?

If it is actually reducing the total size of the drive. I'd say bring it back and ask about it. That does not sound good at all, as I said it could be that you just got a bad hard drive.
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Richard Davey
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Posted: 7th May 2009 12:51
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Is the drive filling up? (i.e. the number of files is increasing, space decreasing) or is Vista reporting a smaller overall drive size each day?

If the later I'd get that drive RMA'd immediately!

If the first one I'd place good money on it being a rogue application / service you've got install that is doing it, rather than Vista itself.

(I run Vista 64-bit too)


http://www.photonstorm.com
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Green Gandalf
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Posted: 7th May 2009 13:26
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Quote: "Is it actually reducing the total amount of space like say, an 80 gig would be 76 gig the next day?"


Yes.

Quote: "or is it filling up with some type of data?"


I don't know.

I know there are all sorts of hidden system files containing backups, temporary files, restore points, etc, and also files associated with Windows updates (the PC has been busy installing these since it was set up). But I doubt this would explain 4GB a day.

Quote: "I'd say bring it back and ask about it. That does not sound good at all, as I said it could be that you just got a bad hard drive."


That's my main fear.

Quote: "Is the drive filling up? (i.e. the number of files is increasing, space decreasing) or is Vista reporting a smaller overall drive size each day?"


That's part of the problem - how do I find out easily? Vista merely reports several folders as being in excess of a certain size -how can I find out how big they really are?

Quote: "If the later I'd get that drive RMA'd immediately!"


I might if I knew what that meant. Could you elaborate/explain?

Quote: "If the first one I'd place good money on it being a rogue application / service you've got install that is doing it, rather than Vista itself."


I hope so - but don't really know how to proceed.

I don't suppose DBPro could be the rogue, could it?

It would be good to get this sorted out fast before I get too much installed.
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Richard Davey
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Posted: 7th May 2009 14:02
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When you go to "Computer" and view the drives it'll say X GB free of Y GB.

What I meant is does the Y value lower each day, or the X value?

If the Y value then RMA (= return to manufacturer / get new drive!)

If the X value then you need to find out where the space is going on a folder level, so something like TreeSize would work great, there is a free version which might do the job:

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

Once you know where all the space is going you will hopefully find the culprit as a result.

Cheers,

Rich


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Green Gandalf
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Posted: 7th May 2009 14:07
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It's the X value - i.e. it thinks the space is filling up with something.

When I next do a disk cleanup I'll try to make a note of which particular step resulted in the space being restored.

Quote: "If the X value then you need to find out where the space is going on a folder level, so something like TreeSize would work great, there is a free version which might do the job:

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

Once you know where all the space is going you will hopefully find the culprit as a result.
"


Thanks for that suggestion, I'll try that when I get home.
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Darth Vader
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Posted: 7th May 2009 18:33
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Same was happening to me. Apparently it was Vista making System Restore points and Shadow Copies for backup purposes!

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Virtual Nomad
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Posted: 7th May 2009 21:10 Edited at: 7th May 2009 21:34
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from the Control Panel, choose System Protection. this will (most likely) reveal that you have it set to automatically create restore points (by default). do with it what you will...

the "How much disk space does System Restore require?" link:

Quote: "To store restore points, you need at least 300 megabytes (MB) of free space on each hard disk that has System Protection turned on. System Restore might use up to 15 percent of the space on each disk. As the amount of space fills up with restore points, System Restore will delete older restore points to make room for new ones."


you should also take a look at your Task Scheduler @ Control Panel/Admin Tools to see what else is going on.

Vista (in my short experience with it) is very much "i know what's best for you!" and, maybe it does... since i've only been using it for a few months now. point being, don't be alarmed YET. the above is probably what's going on... no need to call the manufacturer, etc, etc..

edit/add: and, before you ask (i did) apparently the restore points are stored as "shadows" that are not readily accessable or viewable. but, if u insist on snooping around ...


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djmaster
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Posted: 7th May 2009 22:21
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Now thats exactly why I hate Vista,doing things I dont want or need.I hope what Virtual Nomad said helps.

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Green Gandalf
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Posted: 7th May 2009 23:09 Edited at: 7th May 2009 23:09
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Virtual Nomad

That sounds very plausible and was the first thing I tried - but Windows said there were no restore points.

Here's what my system says (it was the same both before and after I managed to reclaim some lost space):



Where is this System Protection? I can't find it in Control Panel.

But I think you are all on the right track - something is going on behind my back.

We'll get there and knock it on the head somehow.

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tatts
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Posted: 7th May 2009 23:25
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You know it's a funny thing this Vista is. I just checked to see how much of my hard drive is used, And my pc is'nt even right. I have about 20 to 30 gigs worth the software and media in total on my pc yet out of 457 gigs, over a 100 gigs is used up I have only 343 gigs left?
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Virtual Nomad
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Posted: 7th May 2009 23:30 Edited at: 7th May 2009 23:36
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those are back-ups, not restore points. try:



if u want to turn the function off, un-check the box next to the hard drive there and click OK.


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Green Gandalf
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Posted: 7th May 2009 23:36 Edited at: 7th May 2009 23:44
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Quote: "those are back-ups, not restore points"


Thanks. Found it - and stopped them.

Will post back with the new figures.

Edit Now have 439 GB free out of 465 GB which makes much more sense - it had dropped to 392 yesterday, the trend was alarming. What a daft way to set up a PC.

No doubt I'll now press the wrong key and need a restore point.

I hesitate to say this but I've never needed a restore point ...

(I'm now waiting nervously for the inevitable retribution. )
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ABXG
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Posted: 8th May 2009 06:36
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System restore almost always breaks more things than it fixes. The only real solution for creating a "restore point" is to use some kind of software that creates an image of your hard drive that you can later restore if you need to. A good choice if you want to go down this route is Acronis.

I personally feel the best way to fix a broken operating system is just to reformat it. The processes takes a day at most and the result is an operating system sans all the junk files that can accumulate throughout the usage of your system.

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Green Gandalf
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Posted: 8th May 2009 13:56
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Quote: "System restore almost always breaks more things than it fixes."


I can believe it. I don't know anyone who has used a restore point, successfully or not. (At least they haven't mentioned it if they have. )

Has anyone here used one? And, if so, what was the outcome?

Quote: "I personally feel the best way to fix a broken operating system is just to reformat it. The processes takes a day at most and the result is an operating system sans all the junk files that can accumulate throughout the usage of your system."


That's what I've done on the two occasions when something drastic happened - one occasion was caused by a thunderstorm and the other was a weird foul up involving email. I think both were prior to XP.
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