Why does my C drive fluctuate with storage?

[lister]

OK so I took a screenshot of the current usage of C Drives - do you think I should turn off the system protection - will that free up the C Drive?

Also, i think I ought to delete restore points? That ought to have the same effect?

Thanks!

 

[DocBrown]

It looks to me that this is already a 160gb HD in a laptop, correct ?
with 4 partitions & the 100mb reserve partition for boot backup.

 

[Petey7]

Y0u could do that. But that means that literally thousands of potential problems that can be easily fixed with system restore will be made unfixable, or will need to be fixed with a much more difficult method.

 

[whs]

OK so I took a screenshot of the current usage of C Drives - do you think I should turn off the system protection - will that free up the C Drive?

Also, i think I ought to delete restore points? That ought to have the same effect?

Thanks!

It looks like it is turned off because there are zero bytes used. With the current size of your C, I would not turn it on (although I would generally favor turning it on). You just do not have enough space on C. I suggest you do imaging to an external disk instead: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/73828-imaging-free-macrium.html?ltr=I

 

[DeaconFrost]

If it was me, I'd get PartedMagic, and delete those middle two partitions that don't have letters assigned to them. Then, I'd expand the C partition out to use that free unallocated space. The would nearly double your total C drive space. As I suspected near the beginning of this thread, the drive partitioning is done incorrectly.

 

[lister]

The drive without a letter assigned houses linux ubuntu whilst the 2.20 gig I am not sure what this is....

I have uploaded the new screenshot to explain

 

[Curzon]

I would still advise a bigger hard drive. They are not that expensive right now. an 80G IDE HDD would cost about 25-30 bucks.

I am not sure what your system is compatible with though.

Big time agree.

 

[cluberti]

I would still advise a bigger hard drive. They are not that expensive right now. an 80G IDE HDD would cost about 25-30 bucks.

I am not sure what your system is compatible with though.

Big time agree.

Actually, this is a Panasonic Toughbook laptop - good luck finding a larger 2.5" HDD for less than $200.

 

[Thorsen]

He has a 160GB HDD if you read the 22nd post in thread. I read his initial post and thought the drive was 20GB total

 

[lister]

OK thanks so much everyone for the really helpful replies.

Here is my plan - can u guys confirm if this is possible and do-able with ease?

So I take an image of the C and D Drives - reformat the entire machine, re-make the partitions and then reinstall the images of C and D?

That sound ok and do-able with minor headaches?

Surely replacing the hard-drive would have the same above effect no?

Thanks very much !

 

[whs]

Provided that the target partitions are of equal or greater size relative to the originating partitions. You cannot image a 100GB partition (with e.g. 20GB of data) and then try to restore it into a 50GB partition. The data would fit but you get problems with the rest of the partition files - e.g. the MFT. For such an operation you have to use cloning that can restore to a smaller partition.

 

[GEWB]

...is freed by upto 2 gig and then suddenly the storage space left becomes very small like 500mb..

After reading all the replies, then re-reading the original post, I think what you are seeing is the space used for the page (swap) file. The default setting is to allow Windows to resize as it wants based on your memory size.

The default values on my 3GB installation are to automatically allocate (which is dynamic and does change), 16MB min allowed, 4218MB recommended and the system at this moment has 2812MB allocated

Try setting a static page file of an appropriate size. This example is for about 1GB:

Start > Control Panel > All Control Panel Items > System

Advanced system settings > (Advanced tab) click Performace SETTINGS... button

Click the ADVANCED tab

Click the CHANGE... button under Virtual Memory

Deselect (uncheck) AUTOMATICALLY MANAGE...

Click CUSTOM SIZE radio button

Enter an INITIAL SIZE (MB) value such as 1024 (about 1GB page file)

Enter a MAXIMUM SIZE (MB) value the same as initial value of 1024

Click the SET button

Click the OK button

System requires a reboot to take effect.

If you get error/warning messages about page file, increase the size settings.

Regards, GEWB

 

[lister]

Hey thanks for that I think that you might have nailed it.

Just one issue, as you can see from the screenshot I only have 872 MB memory left in the C Drive (which is having this issue) - say if I made the minimum and maximum to 500 MB would that be enough for the page file?

Thanks!