Windows 7 ultimate occupying 100+ GB??

[larryccf]

okay, just upgraded to Windows 7 Ultimate, and i noticed where the orig Win 7 Home Premium occuppied approx 60 GB on a 136 GB partition, it's now occupying 103 GB

This was a clean install, i had wiped the entire disk (a samsung nvme pcie ssd) 3 times before the install, but somehow the "full" install picked up a lot of the programs i had previously installed, so i suspect there's some double installations. By "picked up", i mean i found in Program Files programs i had previously installed on win 7 home premium but had not installed yet

then i noticed FIrefox had all my bookmarks even though i hadn't imported them, and all the websites i visited the user name / passwords were ready for me to clik - other stuff, like the workgroup network key didn't need to be installed, but this computer is my main web computer so it's connected via cable to the gateway

is 100+ GB normal for win 7 ultimate?

 

[behutchins]

IT CAN'T BE A FRESH INSTALL, THERE'S NO WAY! You probably upgraded from Windows 7 Home Premium to Windows 7 Ultimate. if you selected the first option, rather doing a CUSTOM install, then you just did the upgrade, not a clean install as stated, ESPECIALLY if you're seeing the old files. And, most people don't know that their product key determines what operating system you can install. However, now that you have Ultimate installed, I wouldn't touch it, rather I would either delete the un-needed stuff, or back them up to another hard drive, in the event you want to install them again at a later date.

 

[FreeBooter]

Windows 7 Ultimate needs 16 GB available hard disk space (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit).

Use WinDirStat program to find out which files taking lot of storage space and delete files you don't need.

 

[larryccf]

behutchins - again, i wiped the disk 3 times before installing an iso download direct from microsoft using HeiDoc's download tool

but it finding / remembering all that it did has me scratching my head

 

[larryccf]

Windows 7 Ultimate needs 16 GB available hard disk space (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit).

Use WinDirStat program to find out which files taking lot of storage space and delete files you don't need.

thanks i'll give that a try

 

[larryccf]

FreeBooter - tks, that was exactly what i needed

but i sure would like to know how so many programs showed up without being installed - using that WinStatDir i noticed some more, small utilities from majorgeeks for scanning for viruses, malware etc

maybe i need to increase my "wipes" to 5 or more times

 

[FreeBooter]

I'm not sure maybe when you are installing a program they were installed as well.

Its not a good practice to Low level formatting every time you want to clean install Windows OS because performing low-level formatting will bring great influence on hard disk, thus shortening hard disk service time.
You can also change the number of passes that the format goes through. The more passes, the more secure it will be because the format goes through the disk the specified number of times and writes over the information with junk.
Event one pass will delete all data stored on hard disk drive if you want to make sure deleted data cannot recovered you will need to perform more then one pass.

 

[larryccf]

I'm not literate enough to know what "Low level formatting" is, by wipes, in EaseUS Partition Manager you can choose to wipe a disk, and it offers to wipe it as many times as you indicate - I had wiped it 3X. Wiping a 238GB disk 3X took about 45 minutes, and that's fast compared to my SATA SSDs (I'm running samsung NVMe PCIe SSDs for my OS drive)

Only reason i had gone that many was on the advice of a friend (retired MS engineer) - i clone my OS drive to a backup SSD, and whenever i got hit with a malware, trojan, spyware or whatever it used to work to simply clone right back to the OS drive to eliminate the infection. Then one time it didn't work, the infection was still there after the clone back to the OS drive. I couldn't understand how it could have migrated to my backup drive and my buddy suggested the multiple wipes, indicating that a lot of the backup softwares, when they're copying or cloning to a target drive, will read the target drive and if they find a file with the same name & date, they'll skip copying that file to the target drive.

and what still makes this a mystery to me, i disconnected all drives, well the ones with OS backups on them when I installed the Win 7 Ultimate.

but question - what is Low level formatting as opposed to wipes in Disk Management or in my Partition Management program?

 

[Layback Bear]

By chance do you have a 'Windows Old' folder?

Jack

 

[larryccf]

By chance do you have a 'Windows Old' folder?

Jack

Jack - after that genius insult you offered me in that other thread, can you comprehend that i might not care to exchange dialogue with you?

 

[FreeBooter]

Low level formatting overwrites data with zeroes, i.e. performs so called zero-filling of a storage device. It should be noted that after such zeroing, neither a data recovery software nor a data recovery service can recover data off the device.

 

[larryccf]

thanks for the explanation

it may just be EaseUS Partition Manager screwed up somehow - it actually rebooted and did the wipes in Linux and then rebooted back into windows when finished. I'll swap to doing the wipes in Disk Management from now on

and tks again for that WinDirStat program - i'd forgotten all about it, i had it in my "Computer Tools" folder - I took a scan of the new OS and then booted up in my backup copy of home premium and took a scan of it, to compare - wow, pagefile.sys and hiberfil.sys were using 57 GBs in Ultimate compared to 2 GB in home premium. Made a big difference

 

[FreeBooter]

Looks like EaseUS Partition Manager did not perform a Low level formatting if it did all data on the hard disk drive will be permanently deleted.

From Disk Management you can opt-out of quick format but long format does not delete data on the hard disk drive it will check and mark bad sectors it will not do Low level formatting. To do a Low level formatting you can use Diskpart command utility when you do a Low level formatting using Diskpart command you can instruct Diskpart to write one pass zeros this will permanently delete all data stored on hard disk drive.

Boot your computer to Windows installation DVD and from on the disk selection screen, press SHIFT+F10.
A Command Prompt window opens. Type diskpart, and then press ENTER to open the diskpart tool.
Type list disk, and then press ENTER. A list of available hard disks is displayed.
Type select disk number, and then press ENTER. number is the number of the hard disk that you want to perform Low level format. The hard disk is now selected.
Make sure that the disk does not contain required data, type clean all, and then press ENTER to clean the disk. All the partitions and all the data on the disk is permanently removed.
Close the Command Prompt window.
Click the Refresh button to update the disk selection screen.

 

[larryccf]

thanks - i've copied / pasted that into a note with easeus partition, mainly so i remember to use those instructions vs easeus

but i'm glad i discovered this now

 

[FreeBooter]

You are very welcome!