lost space on hard after defrag

[crynowbv]

Hi everyone,


Today i defragmentated my PC, i have 3 partitions, C in which i installed windows and programs, D for downloads and other stuff, and E for games, movie making and others. I used defrag today, on C i won 0.5 GB, on D nothing changed but on E i've lost over 40 GB.

E has 197 GB overall, 121 are used and 23.2 GB are free, so i miss 42GB, lost today after defrag.

What can i do to recover those GB back?


Thanks,

 

[richc46]

For both Vista and 7
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/129976-hard-disk-space-free-up-recover.html

 

[crynowbv]

It does not help.

I have lost HDD space after using defrag instead of winning some. What it says there are basic stuff and i can't see how any of those options can give my GB's back!

 

[richc46]

Lets see how the space is used:
WinDirStat - Windows Directory Statistics

 

[Bill2]

Do you have system protection turned on for E: drive? If yes, turn it off.

Disable System Restore in Windows 7 - How-To Geek

 

[crynowbv]

Also i want to say that i tryed to back up my system and on particion E and I saw that "System Image" has 49 GB, exactly my missing space (almost). But what's that?

http://img19.imageshack.us/img19/7735/84511319.png


Bill, it's Off, only for C it's on.

 

[techcal]

You don't really 'gain' any free space from defragging; a defrag only rearranges file fragments to make them contiguous (well, you may gain tiny bit of space if the drive was highly fragmented initially and post-defrag free space consolidation was very good).

As to your problem, it's quite puzzling but seems to be not uncommon. I really don't know the solution, but am thinking out loud: I used to think a loss in disk space after running the native defrag utilities in Vista and W7 arose from the incompatibility between the native defragger and the shadow copy service (although system restore is disabled on E volume, I *think* VSS may still be active since you have SR enabled for C..I am not at all sure of this). However, see this post here by GeneO
http://www.sevenforums.com/general-discussion/118595-strange-things-happening-w7-3.html#post1021733
that states that the vista/7 defraggers are VSS-aware. I suspect this compatibility is still not up to the mark, and the windows defragger is what is causing the (temporary) loss of space.

I am not certain of any of the above stuff, so take it FWIW .

 

[Bill2]

Bill, it's Off, only for C it's on.

Run auslogix defrag and see what that reports.

Disk Defrag - Fast and Safe Defragmenter for Your Disks

 

[crynowbv]

techcal i will try later.


bill, i already did that, and after aprox. 6 min i lost another 2 gb so i canceled defrag.


damn -40 gb

 

[richc46]

Did you run antivirus and download and scan with malwarebytes. Full scan and updated?

 

[crynowbv]

Did you run antivirus and download and scan with malwarebytes. Full scan and updated?

Found some problems, i fixed them but still, no sign of getting any bit back

 

[crynowbv]

This is the problem!

http://img251.imageshack.us/img251/1930/81053676.png

How do i delete (resize) SYSTEM IMAGE? It has 42gb for God sake ;O

 

[richc46]

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/628-backup-user-system-files-delete-backups.html
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/5455-create-system-image-enable-disable.html
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Set-up-or-change-automatic-backup-settings

In addition to the information that I have provided above
Go to desktop computer icon, right click
properties
system protection
configure

 

[crynowbv]

I have deleted all the backups (about 14 GB),turned off create system image, but still, my image has 28.20 GB left, and i can't see any folder or have any idea where are they.


Anyway, thanks for helping me so far richc46 you've helped me alot.


If i make another backup and try to delete after would work? ( I ask because i don't want to loose some more space ) ( I mean once I delete the backup that i will make, i'll get my GB back or not)

I appologize for my English but is not my native language, I try to do my best.

 

[richc46]

You may have those back ups in a separate partition. Deleting them is only half the battle, reduce the partition size, too.
Use Windirstat or some other software to see just what makes up your drive.

 

[crynowbv]

I will try.

And by the way, Happy Birthday!

 

[richc46]

TY, this is getting exciting even the new members know. Im having a double blast. They are celebrating in Vista, too.

 

[Solarstarshines]

I dont know if this works for 7 but i know i used this method on vista it was a pain in the you know what my space was being eattin worst then pac-man eatting the ghosts let me know if this does you any justice Is Vista Eating Up Your Hard Drive Space? | Live Slick


HAPPY BIG BIRTHDAY RICHC46 MAY YOU HAVE THE GREATEST OF DAYS ON YOU'RE SPECIAL DAY

 

[richc46]

Thanks for the birthday wish, truly appreciated.

Now back to business, I found this which should help
System Restore - disk space - Vista Forums
Works the same in Windows 7

 

[Solarstarshines]

@Richc46 I think that link i posted is the same thing it describes a shadow drive or ghost drive that it stores system files on as well


To check how much space is being used, go to command prompt with administrator privileges:

1. Click Start - All Programs - Accessories. Right click on ‘Command Prompt’ and click ‘Run as Administrator’.
2. Type the following in the command prompt:vssadmin list shadowstorage The results shown will be similar to this: Used Shadow Copy Storage space: 2.702 GB
   Allocated Shadow Copy Storage space: 2.933 GB
   Maximum Shadow Copy Storage space: 5 GB
3. If you feel like Vista is taking up too much space, then use this command to lower it:vssadmin resize shadowstorage /On=[Drive Letter]: /For=[Drive Letter]: /Maxsize=[space]For example, I executed this command to lower it to 2GB: vssadmin resize shadowstorage /On=C: /For=C: /Maxsize=2GB

This saved me more than 10 gigabytes, which I can use to store more essential files on the