Windows7 XP mode - lost space after deleting XP Mode

Imre Burnyoczki · 13 Jan 2011

Dear forum,

I installed XP mode on my PC and later I wanted to delete it. I used a bad method: I deleted the Virtual hard disks, uninstalled XP Mode, but in wrong order, etc (my fault). Now I don't have XP mode on my PC but I lost the free space on my HD what the differencing disk allocated, so I haven't got my disk space back. (at the beginning the lost space was 127GB, now appr. 80 GB). In system manager programs I cannot see any vdisks.

Is it possible to reclaim this space somehow without reinstalling the operating system?

Thank you in advance!

Imre

Kari · 13 Jan 2011

Hi Imre, welcome to the Seven Forums.

A virtual hard disk (vhd) is just a file. If you have deleted the XP Mode's vhd, it should no longer be present "eating" your HD space. After uninstalling Virtual PC and XP Mode, delete all files found in these locations if you are sure you are not going to need anymore:

C:\Users\Your_Username\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows Virtual PC
C:\Program Files\Windows XP Mode
C:\Program Files\Windows Virtual PC
- (In 64-bit Windows 7, C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Virtual PC)

Kari

Imre Burnyoczki · 13 Jan 2011

Hi Kari,

Thanks for your answer! I checked the mentioned directories but unfortunately I haven't found any big files in them. With Explorer I summed up the size of all files on the disk (184GB). According to Explorer the disk size is 287GB, 26 GB free so 77GB is "somewhere else". I asked my colleagues and it turned out that they had the same symptoms earlier, and had to reinstall Windows 7.

Is there any good disk manager program to analyze the disk or file system structure (I run the usual utilies but haven't found anything wrong.

imre

Kari · 13 Jan 2011

That "missing" space can be a sum of many things. Restore points, shadow copies, recycle bin etc. I'll ask some other geeks to come here to offer you a better answer

Kari

WindowsStar · 13 Jan 2011

Download and Install WinDirStat. Run it and it will show you all the files on your system and how big they are. Look for a huge file.

WinDirStat - Windows Directory Statistics

profdlp · 13 Jan 2011

WindowsStar said:

Download and Install WinDirStat. Run it and it will show you all the files on your system and how big they are. Look for a huge file.

WinDirStat - Windows Directory Statistics

Great program. :)

You might also want to post a screenshot of your Disk Management screen.

Imre Burnyoczki · 14 Jan 2011

Hi,

I attach some screenshots about the disk (sorry about the texts, the operating system is hungarian).

Imre

Imre Burnyoczki · 14 Jan 2011

Hi,

Another info: one of my colleagues still uses XP Mode on his PC, and his Windows reduced free space size with 127GB also. Maybe it's normal, I don't know. It seems to me that I haven't got this space back after deleting XP Mode.

Imre

WindowsStar · 14 Jan 2011

I ran all your numbers through the calculator and can only find about 38GB missing. Some of that could be the MFT and other hidden files as part of the OS.

NTFS.com Master File Table.Fix MFT

profdlp · 14 Jan 2011

Imre Burnyoczki said:

Hi,

Another info: one of my colleagues still uses XP Mode on his PC, and his Windows reduced free space size with 127GB also. Maybe it's normal, I don't know. It seems to me that I haven't got this space back after deleting XP Mode.

Imre

Google "127GB Limit". Unless it's a pretty big coincidence it sounds like the XP Mode setup created a virtual 32-Bit LBA partition which is not properly reverting back to the Win 7 standard 48-Bit LBA. As I recall, back in the early Win XP days it wasn't until SP1 that this was corrected.

Not much help, assuming I'm on to something, but it might be a lead in the right direction.

One other things is that Windows Explorer is notorious for not including everything in subfolders when you highlight a gob of stuff and the Right-Click>>Properties. It could be a simple computer "accounting error".