Where has all my hard drive space gone?

This is something that has bothered me for a while. My lenovo laptop has a 60 gig HD. I understand that 60 gb is not the true size and it is actually only 51.0 gb. That is not the problem. If add up all the files in C: drive with the unused space, it comes nowhere near 51 gb.

I ran a program called Windirstat to try and tell me where all my space is going and it seems to tell me that I only have 34.8 gigs total, 20 gigs of which are unused.

Where has the other 16-17 gigs gone? I have attached a screenshot from the program. Hopefully someone can help me out.

 

You are right that your C: partition is 34.8GB. Do you have a recovery partition? Many manufacturers put a recovery partition on the HD rather than supply CDs for recovery.

Right-Click My Computer>Manage>Disk Management from the right hand pane. Does the graph show a second partition of around 15-20GB?

 

This as well seems to show that my hard drive should be 51.0 gigs. IBM comes loaded with rescue and recovery software but I have never used it. I wouldn't even know how to check it.

 

Something doesn't seem to add up.

The 4.89gb IBM_Service partition is your recovery partition. It is hidden (no drive letter assigned) so leave that one alone.

Disk Management says your C: partition is 51gb. You've got 35gb. Let's say 12% reserved for Recycle Bin and 12% for Windows System Restore Points. So 35gb + 6gb + 6gb= 47gb. Close , but not exact.

Maybe try Amust Disk Cleaner and see how it breaks things down. Are Program Files and the WINDOWS folders the two largest in AMUST?

They will probably be the two largest because I can't believe WinDirStat is missing any files. You could try reducing your Restore and Recycler folders to 6% each.

 

Hi BM52,

To simplify housekeeping files are stored in CLUSTERS. The size of a Cluster is dependent on the size of the drive and its Format type. For example a one byte file would take up a whole cluster. A file slightly larger than one Cluster would take two clusters so there is a lot of wasted space on the drive. The Directory reports the actual size of the file. The arithmetic will never come out even unless you can interpret the Directory on the hard drive and do the addition with actual clusters.

Hope this helps a bit,
Jim

 

Ok, I think we might be getting somewhere with the programs you suggested. I attached the screenshot from Amust and I think I found where the other 16 gigs went. The only problem is that I have no idea what RRbackups is. IBM has a program called rescue and recovery??

 

Ha. I figured out what the problem was. The IBM Rescue and Recovery program was reserving more that 15 gb of space on the hardrive for backups. I have never even used this program to make a backup. The C:RRbackups folders were hidden and I couldnt access that part of the HD.

I deleted the entire Thinkvantage rescue and recovery program and now I have a lot more free space.

 

I'm glad you figured things out. I knew there was a reason I kept AMust around, I hate the way it displays file sizes, but it helps find large files in folders you don't usually look in.

I'm sorry I gave you bad info about WinDirStat. The 35 +6 +6 = 47gb was way off. The reserved space for system restore and recycle bin must be included in free space. I guess the numbers came out fairly close to the missing space and my brain just wanted to believe that WinDirStat had it right. I didn't consider hidden files not being counted by the program. :-o

I learned something today. Thanks for posting back!

 

Silly question, but you DO have recovery discs, right?

 

Mekanic, not so silly, I thought the same thing at first.
It looks like bm222 still has a recovery partition that should load factory defaults,at least I hope that is what it does. (pic in post #3).

 

Hi guys,

Thanks for the help here. I don't have recovery disks. I just backup important files on a memory stick. I assumed it would be ok the get rid of the IBM rescue software since I never used it.

Should I be backing up my computer using a different method?

 

If you backup all your important personal files that is good. But recovery disks are used if your operating system gets corrupted and your computer won't boot. You want to be able to reload XP onto your laptop. You need either an installation disk or a recovery partition.

I am guessing that the IBM_Service partition is a recovery partition (it is about the right size). Check the lenovo website for your PC model and look at the manual. Read up on how to perform a recovery to make sure you can do it without the software you deleted. My guess is the IBM_Service partition will get you back to "out-of the box" settings on the laptop and that the software you deleted was for more current backups of existing data. The process is probably model specific so check your manual and/or post your model number and we'll take a look.

 

I really never liked companies not supplying recovery discs. At least Dell sends them for free, just cover shipping. The one nice thing is, for 25 bucks or less, you have your OS.

When I worked hauling trash, one of the guys found a decent Dell laptop, and without talking to me like I told him to, went out and spent way too much money on an OS, and a hard drive.

Oh, well...