Remaining Disk Space Shown Is Less Than Actual

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
G

goldensun87

Distinguished
Apr 2, 2012
123
0
18,690
I already know that the estimated GB amount shown will always be less than the actual amount. But, yesterday I cleared off a bunch of files, and when I finished, it said 340 GB remaining. Since then, I haven't downloaded anything, but currently, it is saying 333 GB. This isn't the first time this has happened, and after a random period of time, the missing space shows up again, but then it just randomly disappears again. Why does this happen? My OS is Windows 7, and this used to happen on Vista also. I don't think it used to happen on Windows XP.
 
Solution
Solandri
This is almost always caused by system restore. Your system restore files are not visible to most disk scanning software, but Windows is aware of it.

Control panel -> system -> system protection -> configure

On many systems, system restore defaults to using up to 50% of the disk. Under disk space usage, move the slider down to a more sane value like 10 GB.
Sort by date Sort by votes
Solandri

Solandri

Illustrious
Jan 4, 2012
4,919
98
39,240
This is almost always caused by system restore. Your system restore files are not visible to most disk scanning software, but Windows is aware of it.

Control panel -> system -> system protection -> configure

On many systems, system restore defaults to using up to 50% of the disk. Under disk space usage, move the slider down to a more sane value like 10 GB.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Solution
G

goldensun87

Distinguished
Apr 2, 2012
123
0
18,690


WOW, it always ticked me off that Vista and everything after, prevented me from deleting the system restore files manually. Not only did you solve my problem, I finally know how to delete system restore points on Vista and 7. System restore points on Vista and 7 do seem to be significantly larger than they were on XP. I remember on my old XP machine, I figured out how to delete the system restore files after 5 years, and the accumulated space was only about 8 GB.

Anyway, thank you, good sir :) .
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
D_Know_WD

D_Know_WD

Judicious
Jul 30, 2014
6,633
3
35,960
Hi there goldensun87,

I would agree with Solandri and say that most probably your system is creating some restore points that are eating up you free space. You can just reduce the space allocated for system restore and delete previous restore points: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/5482/make-system-restore-use-less-space-in-windows-7/

Also, you can do some other things in order to free up some space like cleaning temps files and running disk cleanup: http://www.howtogeek.com/125923/7-ways-to-free-up-hard-disk-space-on-windows/

Edit: Seems I was a little late :D

Cheers,
D_Know_WD
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom