HD Space missing on a 25 Gig Raptor Partition

[TDubbs05]

So I ran into this issue before this last format. On my 74 gig Raptor, I was missing 10 gigs which didn't really bother me but now that i've divid up the drive into 3 partitions (25 gig windows partition) I'm kind of annoyed that i'm missing space again. So as you can see in this screen shot:

The amount of space used and free space don't add up to 25 gigs. I did a google search but most of the results were just noob mistakes. Yes i've looked for hidden files, defraged, and disk checked and nothing seems to bring back that 8 gigs of space i'm missing. Any ideas/suggestions are greatly appriciated.

 

[Snugglebear]

In the folder options deselect the option to hide protected operating system files. This consumes many gigs on an XP install and will likely make up 100% of your difference. On my own install the C volume is listed as having 12.5/40 GB free. With the files hidden, selecting all of the contents of C comes back with 23.1 GB consumed. Flipping the switch and rechecking the space finds 27.3 GB consumed, and that accounts for all but a few kb of the difference, which could well be rounding errors and so on.

 

[NO1B4ME]

In the folder options deselect the option to hide protected operating system files. This consumes many gigs on an XP install and will likely make up 100% of your difference. On my own install the C volume is listed as having 12.5/40 GB free. With the files hidden, selecting all of the contents of C comes back with 23.1 GB consumed. Flipping the switch and rechecking the space finds 27.3 GB consumed, and that accounts for all but a few kb of the difference, which could well be rounding errors and so on.

This happened to me, the missing space were the hidden files.

 

[bchur83]

It is most likely the System Restore that is taking the extra space. If you dont want to use System Restore, go in to the System Control Panel and turn it off.

 

[TDubbs05]

ooo good idea. maybe it is sytems restore. but does syst restore really take up that much space. especially when i reformatted 2 months ago. can't be hidden files cause i've done my fair share of looking.

 

[Patched]

don't forget hibernate and your swap/page file can use up some space, depending on how much ram you have.

 

[TDubbs05]

Well pg file has only been a prob once when i was playing tv shows (4 in a row) building the pg file up to 5 gigs. yeah i was annoyed when i've got 2 gigs of ddr400 and it was only using 800 megs. why is it that pg file builds up as opposed to using the ram? now lets say it is the pgfile issue. how do i clear it's cache?

 

[Patched]

You can set up a static page file size, right click "My Comupter" select properties, advancted tab, performance -> settings button, advanced tab, virtual memory -> change, custom size and make the min and max the same number. Windows will still use the page file and make it grow if it needs more. WARNING though, programs that need the page file might error/crash while windows tries to expand the page file. So set it to a size that is needed

If you don't use hibernate you can turn that off and save that amount which equals the size of your ram. Right click an empty space on your desktop and select properties, screen saver tab, monitor power -> power button, hibernate tab and uncheck enable.

 

[Snugglebear]

Well pg file has only been a prob once when i was playing tv shows (4 in a row) building the pg file up to 5 gigs. yeah i was annoyed when i've got 2 gigs of ddr400 and it was only using 800 megs. why is it that pg file builds up as opposed to using the ram? now lets say it is the pgfile issue. how do i clear it's cache?

Windows has an aggressive VM system that keeps lots of memory free just in case you should need it. Given that this is primarily a desktop OS, it does make sense that they need to keep a good chunk of memory free due to the constant flux of applications starting and stopping. It's not like a server that fires up a couple services and then runs those for days on end. Thus it doesn't allow applications to get very greedy with memory requests; users don't want to sit there for days when starting up Word because they're out of physical memory and the OS has to swap something out to disk. However, in this particular case, blame the player you're using, as it's responsible for requesting those 5 gigs of memory. For all you know it could have a memory leak, is sloppily written, or is literally designed to keep recently played files in memory.

 

[TDubbs05]

good suggestions guys. geez didn't really realize that hibernate take 2 gigs. and thx for that good explanation on the vm/pf usage. makes a lot more sense now. oh and looking at you sig, i think you might need to go for a little upgrade