Suddenly a massive amount of data on my HDD Other Vista Discussions Discuss Suddenly a massive amount of data on my HDD in the Windows Vista forums; I've lived with my new Vista laptop for about a month, and all has gone well. Suddenly, however, there is an unreasonably large amount of data on my internal ...

[xcmav66]

I've lived with my new Vista laptop for about a month, and all has gone well. Suddenly, however, there is an unreasonably large amount of data on my internal HDD. I have a 160GB hard drive, and I can account for at most 70GB of data (music, documents, etc). When I open up the Computer window, Vista tells me that I have less than 7GB of free space What could have caused this? I have gone through the folders in the C: directory but I can't find anything that I didn't expect to have. Are there hidden files that I can't see? Is there a backup file of my entire computer somewhere that I can delete or move to an external HDD? Thanks.

[crabby]

Check that Vista restore isnt using all the space. Just go into restore and disable it. Reboot then re-enable it. Many people have found that frees up alot.

crabby

[felix8406]

That's a lot of data if you only have 7GB free of 160GB. Like Crabby mentioned, by deleting restore points, you might gain some space. There's the possibility that your HD will get those files back again however. You can run Diskcleanup, which give you the choice of deleting temporary and other files, plus the option of deleting all but the most recent restore point. Click Start > Type Disk Cleanup in the search box and hit Enter.

But you must try to find out what’s causing the issue in the first place. You mentioned music files and I’m wondering, are you using a peer-to-peer or similar program to download music or software? If that’s so, I would suggest you verify the program’s options, or uninstall the program and reinstall using custom install. Custom install will provide you with options to turn some features off.

[Snuffy]

You can (I use) go to disktools --> clean --> with extra you do remove all be the very latest "restore points". This will save you lots of space... on all the Restore Points your making.

open computer --> right click C:\ --> open properties --> click Disk Cleanup --> more options
this method you can also delete/remove lots of JUNK TEMP files that does save you space...

[xcmav66]

Thanks guys. I did the disk cleanup including the old restore points and it cleared up about 20GB. That's enough to work with right now until I find the real problem.

[crabby]

Check folder sizes... and which seem big look for things in them

crabby

[Snuffy]

Originally Posted by xcmav66

Thanks guys. I did the disk cleanup including the old restore points and it cleared up about 20GB. That's enough to work with right now until I find the real problem.

When you were in the Disk Cleanup did you also check what you had in TEMP files which can also be DELETED or Cleaned... If you had 20GB or Restore I'm sure you have well over 20GB in Temp files.. every program you install leaves ~tmp files, every mini-dump leaves files... as far as I remember you can clean every thing that is showed in Disk Cleanup simply add the check and do it... you should also clear you cookies and cache at different times... cookies can and will add up fast with ea taking 1K no matter how big it really is...also everything you delete leaves CRUD at 1K ea like bad links... many 3rd party programs will check and remove bad links... you also need a very good REG Cleaner.. I use two
1. Vista Manager and 2. REGCURE.. this also cleans and saves space... doing this also makes your shutdown and start time FASTER...
If you do not average
40s to 1m shutdown.... you are full of crud -- I avg 30s
1m30s to 2m30s restart time....you are full of crud -- I avg 1m30s
1m to 1m30s is cold start time .....your full or lots of crud -- I avg 1m02s
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My Boot Drive is SATA II -- 80GB and have lots of FREE space after Office 2007 and 2 Full play from HD Super graphic laden Submarine games. installed. plus others.