[kiruban]

I have a vista home pc that has a 160GB HDD. Something keeps draining my hard drive space in considerably increasing amount. I researched and found out that it eats away 15% of the original space and not more than that. I was fine with it. I was under the impression that it wont take more than that and it just will overwrite the old restore point and not make any new ones. I was wrong and it just keeps on eating almost everytime an update is installed and after every scheduled virus scan (virus scan scheduled for everyday). I altered the scan and the update schedule and even then its doing it.

I then browsed and found out that it could also be a result of the hibernation file. The default settings are that it would hibernate when left alone as part of the system power/performance settings. I went and disabled it by turning it off via the command line and wala...My hard drive jumped for 80GB to 150GB. It is good if you are a space junkie and don't worry about anything else.

Switching off the hiberfil.sys via the command line brings along a headache along with it. It disables the system restore and then you won't be able to restart it without having to reiinstall xp.

My Questions.

1) How can I manually delete these restore files and where are they in the system. I couldn't find it inside c:\windows\system32\

2) Is it possible to set the restore point overwrite system. What I mean by this is to ask the system to keep a set number of restore point file and to recycle it once it reaches the last file. I assume the default is like 10 restore files. Once the 10th file is reached, it goes back to 1 and overwrites that file with new data and the old one is history unless you copy it and rename it with a diffferent filename.

I look forward to getting some geeky feedbacks and looking forward to put them to the test. If your solution works then I will reveal it so.

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Hello, kiruban, and welcome to Geeks to Go!

For question 1: Please press start and type in the search box: Disk Cleanup. Let it scan your C (or other) drive.

You will see a More Options tab, click on that, you will see System Restore and Shadow Copies in the second row. Click that cleanup button and it will delete all restores except for the most recent restore point.

For question 2: There is no special way to set it. There is a way to edit that parameter in the registry to set it, but editing the registry is risky -- so this will not be talked about.

How much disk space does System Restore require?

To store restore points, you need at least 300 megabytes (MB) of free space on each hard disk that has System Protection turned on. System Restore might use up to 15 percent of the space on each disk. As the amount of space fills up with restore points, System Restore will delete older restore points to make room for new ones.

System Restore will not run on disks smaller than 1 gigabyte (GB).

[DragonMaster Jay]

Hello, kiruban, and welcome to Geeks to Go!

For question 1: Please press start and type in the search box: Disk Cleanup. Let it scan your C (or other) drive.

You will see a More Options tab, click on that, you will see System Restore and Shadow Copies in the second row. Click that cleanup button and it will delete all restores except for the most recent restore point.

For question 2: There is no special way to set it. There is a way to edit that parameter in the registry to set it, but editing the registry is risky -- so this will not be talked about.

How much disk space does System Restore require?

To store restore points, you need at least 300 megabytes (MB) of free space on each hard disk that has System Protection turned on. System Restore might use up to 15 percent of the space on each disk. As the amount of space fills up with restore points, System Restore will delete older restore points to make room for new ones.

System Restore will not run on disks smaller than 1 gigabyte (GB).

[kiruban]

The restore points and shadow copy files that are cleaned via the diskclean utility didn't not do the solution expected of retaining the hard disk space. Its only a temp superglue solution. I have tried that and I still have a hole in my hard disk....lol.

I want a Armor Plated Obama Limo Hard disk with only 15% disk loss/year( ). Don't worry....I have tried numerous things including scrapping my entire os since I messed up the registry and didn't know how to cook a solution.

I am armed and ready to fry my options.

[DragonMaster Jay]

Have you tried disk defragmenter and CHKDSK (Check Disk)?

Please try both of those and then let me know of the results!