Need harddrive help for vista

[PcMan]

My hard drive the space keeps going down like yeaterday it was 502GB and today it's 492GB. Iam not downloading nothing, and after i installed the sp2 for vista the gb went back up but now there going back down. I lose a few gb a day. also i delete my cookies and my temp internet files, Could my hard drive be bad??? Any help please.

[nitinagarwal1988]

the space you lost is due to the restore points and the backup's taken by windows updates......to gain your disk space back,
open cmd,(click start, type cmd in search bar and then run it as administrator) then type compcln.exe and press enter.
that's it, you'll get all your diskspace back.

for more follow the link | Free Up Lost Disk Space in Windows Vista and Reclaim Disk Space after Windows Vista SP1 install

[PcMan]

the space you lost is due to the restore points and the backup's taken by windows updates......to gain your disk space back,
open cmd,(click start, type cmd in search bar and then run it as administrator)
then type compcln.exe and press enter.
that's it, you'll get all your diskspace back.
for more follow the link | Free Up Lost Disk Space in Windows Vista and Reclaim Disk Space after Windows Vista SP1 install

yeah but after i do this will i stop loseing disk space and i installed sp2 for windows vista but iam gonna try it thanks for the info. I did it i got 1 GB back lol

[seti]

The simple answer to this is system restore. Vista creates restore points automatically and these "eat " up space. You do not have to do anything for this to happen, so do not worry on that. You can switch this off, but it is not always adviseable to do so. If you are sure that your settings and system are sound then do so and that will keep your space. If you are not sure how to turn off system restore, get back here and we'll tell you.

[HappyAndyK]

Thanks nitin for mentioning the links; you saved me time

[whs]

Here is a little write-up I made a while ago to answer your question. It comes up all the time and can only be understood if you understand the shadowstorage and the restore point approach of Vista. There is nothing to worry about and I would NOT recommend to delete/reduce the shadowstorage or the restore points (shadows). They are vera useful for a lot of purposes.

With each install and uninstall, Vista writes a shadow (restore point) of about 1GB - plus one is written each day. For that purpose Vista reserves 15% of your OS disk partition and allocates/uses it as needed.
Find Command Prompt (in All Programs > Accessories > Command Prompt), right click on it and Open as Administrator. Into the little black window type VSSADMIN LIST SHADOWSTORAGE and hit ENTER. It will show 3 numbers:
Allocated - that is the amount that it has grabbed from your OS partition at this time
Used - this is the amount currently used
Maximum - this is the ultimate amount it will allocate and use
Once you reach "maximum", it will reuse the space deleting the oldest shadows for the storage of the newest shadows. With e.g. an appr. 200Gb of OS partition you should expect a maximum of 30GBs that are reserved for the system and that you cannot use. If your OS partition is larger or smaller, the shadowstorage will be accordingly (always 15% max.) But the restore points (shadows) are required the day you need to do a system restore

And here is one of my tutorials which will give you some more ideas for what the shadowstorage can be used:http://forum.thewindowsclub.com/wind...-explorer.html

[PcMan]

Thanks for all the info.