Unknown loss of disk space, HELP!

[MAB1994]

Hi, I have a new PC build with a 500gb hard drive and every day without me installing anything it loses 6 to 10 gig! I figured it was a virus of some kind and installed an anti virus program and scanned the PC but it reported that it found nothing. Once this happened i thought it would be better to just reformat and start all over hoping that it wouldn't happen again, after reformatting my vista ultimate 64 it did the exact same thing it started at 16 GB and now at present its all the way up to 43 GB with out me doing anything. why is it doing this? How can i stop it?

 

[sminlal]

How much time are you giving it? Immediately after the initial installation there might be some growth if the system creates a hibernation file, extends the page file, or creates restore points for the whack of previously-issued patches and service packs. But it should stabilize after a day or two.

 

[arunloveshacking]

HI MAB1994, Check whether ur Windows is doing a backup Image on ur hard drive as it will consume space without notification...

Let us know the result.

 

[Mimoso]

By default Windows uses 15% of the drive for System Restore so you will eventually lose 75GB.
You can verify this by typing vssadmin list shadowstorage from the command line (make sure you run the command prompt with administrator rights). You can also use vssadmin to limit the used space for System Restore.

 

[sminlal]

Here's a useful article that describes how to see what space is used by Restore Points and how to manage them:

http://www.tomsguide.com/us/windows-vista-solutions,review-1179-2.html

...and don't forget that when you "delete" files they don't really get deleted - they go into the Recycle Bin. You have to "empty" the recycle bin in order to recover the space.

 

[MAB1994]

I figured out how to delete the restore points and as it turns out it had made about 17 restore points in the last three days! I deleted these and it gave me back all the missing disk space i had lost, about 20 gb worth. Thanks sminlal that had me really baffled.