Lost disk space

Hi all, this is my first post , wonder if anyone can help.

I'm running windows xp pro sp2, 128Mb RAM. Hard drive is 6.04Gb, of which 4.81Gb is used, 1.23Gb is free, file system is NTFS. I only recently installed windows and am confused where the space has gone. If I look at the folders in Drive C, 'windows' takes up 1.23Gb, 'program files' is 452Mb, 'docs and settings' is 110Mb.

I've run ccleaner, run an error check, and defragmented the drive. I also ran Disk Space Recovery Wizard 6.5 and this is what's really confusing me, it says

Total disk space 6,189 Mb
Current free disk space 1,262 Mb
Till now 4,465 Mb disk space has been recovered

During the 2 scans DSRW ran, the message 'one or more files appear to be securely protected and will not be scanned, continuing search' appeared. I realise the 'till now' figure is cumulative, but I've only run two searches (set I and set II), and my free disk space hasn't changed. On the first search there were files in the windows directory called something like set1.tmp through to set8.tmp, two of which were about 1Gb each. I'm sorry I didn't take too much notice of the names because I thought I'd found the problem. On subsequent searches the files are not found, so I assume they've been deleted, but still my free disk space is the same.

I should say that before this I had problems when attempting to install ms office, halfway through installation 'the source file is corrupt' message came up, which led me to check the disk and defrag the drive. Before this I had over 3Gb of free disk space. Can anyone shed any light?

 

Hate to say it but XP OS will consume ~4Gb and this is what you are seeing.

 

Tried another disk check after restarting and the problem is fixed, used space 2.17Gb, free space 3.86Gb, which is what it was before I tried to install office.

Thanks for the reply btw Mr Eagle

 

Don't thank me it was a self resolving prob and I'm amazed the OS was so small at the end of the day. Any other time more than willing