[LittleRaven]

Hello, and thanks for taking the time to read my little problem!

Ok, so this will probably be really easy for you guys, and I'll probably smack myself for not knowing.
I recently bought a new hard drive and partitioned a space strictly for Windows and nothing else, my C:\ drive. Now, I put 7 gigs of space on it figuring that would be plenty, but now I'm getting low space warnings. I opened up my explorer browser (I use "2xExplorer", not the standard one that comes with Windows) and everything there only shows as taking up a little over 2 gigs, yet My Computer shows that I only have 143 megs of space left out of 6.94gigs, and there's nothing else I can find that I can delete. My recycle bin is empty, the temp folder is empty. Now, keep in mind this is a brand spanking new hard drive, it hasn't even been up for 24 hours yet. How can I have gotten almost 7 gigs of info on that drive? Is Windows really that huge, and the majority of the sys files just not showing up on my Explorer (even tho I have it set to show EVERYTHING), or is there something else going on?

It took me several hours to get this hard drive partitioned (several times it kept showing as having large portions unpartitioned when it shouldn't have), and I've FINALLY got all my stuff back up the way I like it. Am I going to have to reformat the bugger and partition C:\ to be bigger and do it all over again?

I should mention on my previous hard drive, my C:\ drive was about the same size, and I had over 3 gigs of space free, with a lot more programs on it than this new one does. Something's gotta be wrong!

Thanks sooo much for your help!! VERY appreciated!!

-Brandon

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If you run disc clean up, click more options, click clean up restore points, have you got any more room

[Retired Tech]

If you run disc clean up, click more options, click clean up restore points, have you got any more room

[LittleRaven]

Thanks for the quick reply!!

I opened up the disc cleaner and did as you suggested, but it didn't free up any more space at all. An odd thing happened though... I copied some random file to that drive, then deleted it and emptied recycle bin(which was empty before I started), and I suddenly have a lot more space than when I copied/deleted that single file. I went from 140 or so megs to 770. I did this right after I posted my first question, before I got your reply.

140 megs total - copied a 20meg file -deleted same 20 meg file = 770 megs now free. Right...

Is that as confusing to you as it is to me? lol

Is there anything else I can try?

-Brandon

[peterm]

Hi Little Raven
Make and model number of the drive please.
Also Do you have system restore this takes about 12% of disc space. Not as much as what is missing but it does take some or are you using a program like go back.

Edited by peterm, 08 December 2006 - 07:40 PM.

[LittleRaven]

it's a Maxtor 6L200P0 200gb

[peterm]

are you using any programs like go back
Xp pro takes only 1.5gigs

[LittleRaven]

I don't know what "go back" is, never heard of it before, sorry.

This is what I have on that drive:

"Windows" folder = 2.08gb
"Documents and Settings" folder = 188mb
"Program Files" folder = 464mb

and that's it. I'm so lost.

[peterm]

Click on start > allprograms>accessories>system tools>system information.
Click on the + next to componets click on the + next to storage click on drives.
What info does it give about your drive C:

[LittleRaven]

When I open System Information, I get a Help menu that doesn't have any of those options. The closest I could find was a "My Computer Information - Hardware" page, which gives pretty basic info on the C:\ drive: Capacity - 6.97gb. Used: 6.29gb. Free: 695.72mb. That's all it tells me, sorry. Is there another place I could look for more details?

[peterm]

When you open system infomation click on view is it set to current system information.
How did you format the drive - what program did you use

Edited by peterm, 08 December 2006 - 08:59 PM.

[LittleRaven]

There actually isn't a view option on mine. I wonder if it's opening the right program, even. It's the "Help and Support Center" that I get. There are 4 category's: "Pick a Help topic", "Ask for assistance", "Pick a task" and "Did you know?", none of which seem to be what I need though.

I formated the drive using the "MaxBlast 4" installation CD that came with the hard drive, used as a boot disc, prior to installing Windows.

[peterm]

Sorry I can't work out what is going on.
It looks like you have done everything right. I wonder if Maxblast 4 makes a hidden backup file as a restore/system recovery.
Max
Did you follow step 4

Edited by peterm, 12 December 2006 - 01:20 AM.

[LittleRaven]

It must have been that MaxBlast software, somehow. I decided to add a second hard drive to my first so I have 320gb of storage now, and reformatted using Windows XP software instead, and things seem to be working better now. I also gave my C: drive 25gb instead of 7gb, so unless something is REALLY messed up I won't have any more trouble with it. Also, I can now access the System Information window, whereas before I couldn't. Very odd.

Only concern I have now is that my C: drive is formatted using FAT32, but Windows would only format the rest of the partitions with NTFS. Will having 2 different formats cause problems? If not, then I should be all set. I have no idea what was causing the problems before, but it seems to be all ironed out now.

Thanks very much for the help! I guess it was just another PC Mystery.

[peterm]

If you wish to convert.
Convert
Also go to help and support on your computer and in the search box type convert
and read what is says.
Most people prefer to have the C as ntfs. If you are not sure post a topic about this and see what replies you get. A lot of the Techs will say NTFS is better. Also that it helps better security. If you read the link I gave you and the help and support file they recommend to format rather then convert.
Security is not an issue to me so I suggest you get some more opions with a new topic.

Cheers
Peterm