Windows 7: Is HD really full?

There are no 239GB of restore points. The snip in post 11 shows clearly that there is only 6.2GB of shadowstorage. The 239GBs is the whole system.

The Treesize snip in post 16 shows 239GB allocated to System Volume Information, with 53 actual files in it. Even if all but the latest restore point is "cleaned out", the 239GB allocation will remain but with only say 7GB inside of it actually in use for the latest restore point. This can be confirmed by using the System Protection -> Configure dialog, to see maximum size and what's actually in use.

Turning System Recovery OFF (using the System Protection dialog) for the drive should delete the currently allocated 253GB System Volume Information area entirely.

And then turning it back ON for the drive (which of course is what you want) but configuring its maximum space to say no more than 5% should limit its re-growth in the future to no more than about 25GB max. This should hold 3-4 restore points based on what his typical restore point size looks like.

If retaining more restore points than 3-4 are wanted, increase the maximum space slider to more than 5%, but for sure it should be something less than 10% absolute tops (and I feel that to be unnecessarily generous). You want some kind of reasonable upper limit here.

That's not what Treesize shows, it reports 293GB of space used in System Volume Information, so the missing space IS there. My supposition, either the restore point metadata is damaged and vssadmin is getting it wrong or the NTFS file structure is incorrect and the directory entry is out of sync with the actual data, in which Treesize and all tools will report it wrong.

What about running CHKDSK and SFC?

A big shout out to all who helped tirelessly on this issue; especially dsperber and others who pointed to the Restore Point usage. I now have 234G free out of 451! Ran CC cleaner to top it off.

Excellent!

Don't forget to now go into RMB on Computer -> Properties -> System Protection, and select your C-drive to ensure that
"protection" shows as ON (which is what you want).

And then be sure and push CONFIGURE..., to set your maximum space utilization for all accumulated restore points. You probably don't need more than 3-4 copies of restore points at most, so in your case with 7-9GB as your typical restore point size that would be no more than say 30GB max is my recommendation. Once this is set Windows will automatically delete the oldest restore points any time a new one is taken, to guarantee that you don't exceed your specified allowed maximum space utilization. I think with 3-4 system restore points retained you'll have all the "protection" you need.

Glad you got this resolved. Treesize is a wonderful product (I support the vendor, and have paid for the "Professional" license and additional capabilities).

That is the only possibility I can imagine because normally vssadmin gets the right data.

My free space has been undone; the only "work" that I've done is to image my system and back up partition via Seagate Disk Wizard. Now I only have 40G out of 500G.
Perhaps WH had a point regarding something damaged in restore? Why all the space to partition?
I've deleted my previous restore points but it did not help. Here are snips from VSSadmin, and TreeSize.
I hope there is a solution.

I found the culprit: Seagate Discwizard made a copy not only on external HD but also on the OS. Deleted the OS file, and voila, have my free space back.

Now we have seen them all. There is really a million ways for things to get screwed up. LOL