[DeLorean]

DO NOT uncheck any of those boxes. System Restore is a lifesaver in the event of a catastrophic crash. It sounds to me like you have misunderstood the term "Shadow Storage".

Shadow Storage is a very poorly named part of windows. It's basically copies of windows, each one is massive, they allow you to revert back to an earlier state in the event of a catastrophic crash.

By setting it to 18Gb you've given it a quarter of your drive in order to hold 'shadow copies' of windows. Go back to where you changed the option and reset it to the default size.

Then open My Computer, right click on the C: drive, select properties and click on "disk cleanup", then open the 2nd tab 'more options'. you should see a section called System Restore and Shadow Copies, click on clean up and it will empty most of that 18Gb by deleting all but the most recent backup. It may take a while if there are multiple backups, you only need the most recent back up (The 'Last Known Good Configuration.)

Go back to the 1st tab, check/tick all of the boxes you see and then click on ok.

This should give you back a vast chunk of your drive without requiring you to install third-party applications or uninstalling software, OR losing system restore protection.

If you do get a good bit of your space back then i suggest you run a defragmentation overnight (with only a Gb free it is likely that your drive will be fragmented all to hell and require a long time to defrag), this will reorganise your files to the start of the drive leaving whatever free space you have at the end of it speeding up the computer massively.

[Mollie]

Yes system restore is how you recover *sometimes* in the event of a crash. In the event of a catastrophic crash, however, it has been my experience that system restore is pretty much useless.

The files that system restore retains can take up 100s of gigabytes of space. I find that if I don't clear mine at least once a month, it eats up at least 100 gigabytes. I am not telling him to disable system restore completely; I am advising him to *temporarily* disable it, then reboot immediately. Upon logging in, I advised him to re-enable it. When he reenables it, system restore will automatically set a restore point for that time.

Mollie

[TheOutcaste]

A lot easier to just run Disk Cleanup and let it delete all but the last Shadow copy.

The default size limit is 15%, which would be 150 GB on a 1 TB drive. Some systems might be set to unlimited though.
You can always set the limit lower if you don't want it using that much space. No need to have to clear it out, just set the limit you want, and it will not go over it.

Enter vssadmin resize shadowstorage /? in an Elevated Command Prompt for syntax.

conman22, nothing unusual in the chkdsk log. It does say if found some free space that was marked as being used, but it still shows you only have 36,904 KiB free space remaining.

Did you ever get TreeSizeFree to finish? I've not run it on a drive this full so don't know if it would have a problem completing. Look for folders that show Access Denied, these will be hiding files that are taking up space. When you check properties, they show a size of 0 instead of the actual size, which is why selecting all files and folders shows less space used than the Disk Properties dialog shows.

Disk Clean up usually only deletes temp files that are more than a week old. Try manually deleting them:
Click Start, type %temp%, press Enter
Select all files and press Delete. If you get a message that a file can't be deleted because it's open (very common), click Skip.
Click Start, type temp, when displayed, click the Temp folder under Files, delete all the files in here as well.
Then empty the Recycle Bin

What is your current ShadowCopy usage and size limit?
Open an Administrative Command Prompt:
Click Start, type cmd, press CTRL+SHIFT+Enter (hold CTRL+SHIFT until the UAC prompt appears)
Type vssadmin List ShadowStorage and press Enter
Copy and paste the result: right click the Title bar of the Command Prompt, point to Edit, click Select All. Now press Enter. This copies the window to the clicpboard.
Click in the Reply box and press CTRL+V to paste it in.

[aka Brett]

Post deleted as I didnt see the second page{setting is 10 per page here} before posting and the information has been already been covered in the later posts

[conman22]

Sorry for the delay folks. I was away from my computer all weekend. Needless to say, a much needed break from the headaches this thing is causing. Glad nothing unusual in the chkdsk. Still having trouble getting TreeSize Free to completely finish for whatever reason. Below is the vssadmin list shadowstorage command. I have been fiddling with it (trying to get more space) and changed it from 6gb to 18gb back to 3gb (where it is now). However, when I right-click C:, select Properties, Disk Cleanup, 2nd tab, System Restore and Shadow Copies, Cleanup, I get some space, but never much more than a few MBs. I have since cleaned up my music folder, but that only gave me 2GBs or so. I think my total space is ~3GB now; however, it seems to be sucking up that space minute by minute (not surprisingly).

Any advice on how to best proceed from here would be appreciated. Thanks to everybody chipping in. Hope yall had a good weekend. Look forward to hearing back from yall.

Take care,
MC


Microsoft Windows [Version 6.0.6001]
Copyright (c) 2006 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
C:\Windows\system32>vssadmin list shadowstorage
vssadmin 1.1 - Volume Shadow Copy Service administrative command-line tool
(C) Copyright 2001-2005 Microsoft Corp.
Shadow Copy Storage association
For volume: (C\\?\Volume{4075c19b-f452-11db-ad42-806e6f6e6963}\
Shadow Copy Storage volume: (C\\?\Volume{4075c19b-f452-11db-ad42-806e6f6e69
63}\
Used Shadow Copy Storage space: 1.404 GB
Allocated Shadow Copy Storage space: 1.656 GB
Maximum Shadow Copy Storage space: 3 GB

C:\Windows\system32>

[TheOutcaste]

Try running TreeSizeFree as an Admin. Right click the icon, and choose Run as Administrator, see if that lets it complete.

Disk Cleanup doesn't delete files that are less than 1 week old, so you may want to manually delete them, or at least look and see if they are using up the space.

Click Start | Run to open the Run box. If you don't have Run on the Start menu, you can press the WinKey+R to open the run box.

Type %temp% and press Enter.
This opens the User Temp folder
You can delete everything, just skip any files it says are open
Open the Run box and type temp and press Enter.
This opens the System Temp folder
You can delete everything in here as well, it should tell you you need to get permission to continue, check to box to repeat for all similar items, then click Continue. OK the UAC prompt, and it should delete any files that are not in use.

[conman22]

Hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving...away from all these computer problems! Outcaste, I was able to create a little more space manually deleting my temp files, but it wasn't too full. I still have a little more than 3GB, which gives me some breathing room, but a little too close for comfort for me.

Any other suggestions on where to go from here would be appreciated. Thanks to everybody who has chipped in so far. Hope we can create some more ways to free up some of this space.

Thanks,
MC

[TheOutcaste]

Still need to get TreeSizeFree to finish, to see what is using the space, and/or find folders you don't have access to so they can be checked.
3 GB free means 63 GB used, with ShadowStorage set to 3 GB that means 60 GB of files, and if that isn't music, videos, or pictures you've added, we need to track down just what it is.

[conman22]

Still trying to get TreeSize Free to finish. Don't know what the problem is. I have let it run for hours at a time and still doesn't go beyond scanning the first 30GB. If I can ever get it to finish, I'll post some updated screenshots about what comes up. However, I posted some screenshots from an unfinished scan that might help determining what's causing all the trouble. If you have any suggestions on what should/needs to be deleted, I'm all ears. My music took up some space, but not nearly as much as most people. I was able to fiddle with my iTunes, though, and delete some of them, so that cleared out some space, but I'm still in the red. Thanks for the reply.

[conman22]

Screenshots from an unfinished scan is posted a few posts up in case anybody wants to take a look. Thanks.

[winddomino]

I deleted it because I gave you instructions for XP and then realized you're using Vista.