Losing Hard Drive space

[vilmacrazy]

You can use CCleaner. try please, because advanced this new version.

 

[SevenNerd]

Download HD Tune Here : Download HDTunePro.exe

and make sure your HD health status reads fine. If theres any errors your drive is mosy likely failing

 

[GeneO]

System Volume Information isn't included since it is not accessible. Did you disable Hibernation? Using it sometimes cause file corruptions.

Type cmd in Start Search, right click cmd, Run as Admin, then type in powercfg -h off. Reboot and check your used space. This turns hibernation off and deletes the hiberfil.sys file.

hiberfile.sys while large is also not increasing. I can delete it but that's really not what I am after.

You are saying that Sys Volume Info isn't included in TreeSize.

Is Sys Volume Info strictly restore points? Is it also true that Computer does include it and that is the difference between the 120.8GB and 149GB that I see? Would almost work except for the slight difference in numbers as explained above.

Mainly. Other volume shadow copies are put in there besides system restore. For example if you make a backup a volume shadow copy is made temporarily, it is removed after the backup.

Like I suggested earlier, it is clear your increase is from restore points and the amount it can grow is limited and under your control.

 

[huntersforever]

I Know Whats Taking Some Hard Drive Space, Its The Shadow Copy, is a technology included in Microsoft Windows that allows taking manual or automatic backup copies or snapshots of data. You Can Probably Stop The Service..

 

[GeneO]

I Know Whats Taking Some Hard Drive Space, Its The Shadow Copy, is a technology included in Microsoft Windows that allows taking manual or automatic backup copies or snapshots of data. You Can Probably Stop The Service..

Why would you do that? It is necessary for backups and restore points. The only space that can grow with volume shadow copy is restore points and that is limited by the user. This is a very good feature of Windows and you are out of hand saying turn it off to save a few GB?

 

[Dave76]

Check your HDD manufacturer and run there disk check utility, run both short and long versions of the test.

If you're not sure of your HDD manufacturer D/L: SIW - System Information for Windows

For example:
Western Digital Lifeguard – Quick Test and Extended Test
Seagate SeaTools – Short Drive Self Test and Long Drive Self Test
Samsung ES tools – Drive Diagnostic test

This should be your first step.

 

[GeneO]

There is nothing wrong with your disk drive that is causing this. It is restore points.

 

[Dave76]

537GB free of 686GB. So that's 149GB used somewhere.

Looking at properties for the drive shows the entire drive using the 149GB (or 148GB some rounding going on).

TreeSize says C:\(OS) is 120.8GB. So that's my question where is the ~28GB? Computer shows it all accounted for on C:\(OS) but TreeSize does not.

Is it restore points? Are restore points included in the Computer's properties but not in TreeSize? That could explain it but as mentioned I have 30GB and I'm "missing" 28GB.

I'm not necessarily trying to reclaim lost space just trying to understand where it is and most importantly why I seem to be losing 1-2GB a day. And the 1-2GB a day is not going to C:\(OS) as that number (currently 120.8GB) doesn't increase by 1-2GB a day.

If the above 30GB is what your restore points are set for just wait and see if the 'Lost Space' exceeds 30GB. Should be able to see it today.
Depending on the size of your data, 1-2GB per restore point is within the expected range.

You have a lot of free space so that isn't going to cause you any problems.

Or you can reduce your system restore capacity to 15GB and see if you get the 13GB back, and then you can see if it keeps expanding.

If you don't need the space you can set it back to 30GB after you find out if this is where the space is going.


It will not do any harm testing the drive first as recommended by myself and others previously.
Better to know if your HDD is in good health than suddenly finding out wasn't, later.
It is a known fact that HDDs can and do fail at any time, even when new.

Let us know what you decide to do.

 

[bru]

3GB more gone in three days. According to TreeSize it did not go to C:\(OS). It did not go to System Restore. System Restore size did not increase by 3GB. This is getting concerning.

 

[bru]

Check your HDD manufacturer and run there disk check utility, run both short and long versions of the test.

If you're not sure of your HDD manufacturer D/L: SIW - System Information for Windows

For example:
Western Digital Lifeguard – Quick Test and Extended Test
Seagate SeaTools – Short Drive Self Test and Long Drive Self Test
Samsung ES tools – Drive Diagnostic test

This should be your first step.

I have a Seagate drive. ST3750528AS.

It seems Seagate SeaTools is not working for the internal drive. Short Drive Self Test says unavailable when I try to run it. Long Drive Self Test is not even listed under basic tests. When I try to run the Short generic it starts and says "outer scan" but neverprogresses any further.

I happen to have a Seagate external drive and the tests are available for it and the one Short self test I did passes. So why wouldn't the tool work for my internal drive? I imagine that can't be good.

The other tool posted HDTunePro.exe. Is that ok for me to download?

 

[Britton30]

Yes HD Tune is OK. You can use the trial version.

 

[Dave76]

As Britton30 said try HD Tune.
If that doesn't work then download SeaTools for DOS and run it from a CD, this will run from its own OS and take your system's OS out of the scenario.

The fact that SeaTools ran on the external HDD and not the internal HDD indicates a issue, check that both power and SATA cables are firmly attached and not pinched anywhere. Switch them out for different cables if you have any spares.

Let us know how the tests go.

 

[bru]

I spent some time with HP customer support. They really can't comment on why SeaTools may not work as they have their own ways to check the drive.

They have a standard test which I had run many times and it always says the HDD is fine. Again today everything passed.

They had me create a diagnostic disk that when launched provides more in depth diagnostic tools. We used it to test the hard drive. HP says it uses the same industry standard tests that SeaTools would use. Not sure about that but the four tests it ran did seem very similar to what SeaTools has (short, etc.). All four tests passed. There is also a long test and I will run it soon.

So in HP's eye the HDD is fine.

Prior to calling HP I contacted Seagate and they agreed that because SeaTools wasn't working on the internal drive while it worked on the external meant there was probably a problem. But HP pointed out perhaps the internal drive isn't configured to allow the testing. Seems a bit far fetched but who knows.

HP also didn't seem concerned about my missing drive space.

So is my internal drive bad? The diagnostics run through the PC manufacturer says no. Other tools have given me a problem that may indicate yes. I can go further and try even more tools but at this point I think I will just see how things behave for a while.

 

[Dave76]

I would run HD Tune and SeaTools for DOS.

Always a good idea to get confirmation in a situation like this, a HP test may be a little more forgiving than the others.

As for the statement 'perhaps the internal drive isn't configured to allow the testing' might, repeat might, apply if it is a very old HDD.
Sounds to me that HP is trying to down play the issue, as all OEMs do.

Let us know what you decide to do.

 

[karwan4pc]

Use Mini Tool partition

 

[Britton30]

Use Mini Tool partition

Thanks and welcome to Seven forums.
This thread is almost two years old.