Windows 7 Noticed HD is small

[oxicottin]

hello, i installed win 7 a year or so as an upgrade from vista and since then the HD is way smaller. I wanted to know if and how i can find if it kept the vista data or made a backup of it and its hidden. Or how can i see hidden areas of a HD?

I have a toshiba pc and i remember fiddleing around and i thought i seen some hidden section that said that.

thanks

 

[patcooke]

See this MS guide for cleaning up after an upgrade install

How do I remove the Windows.old folder?

 

[oxicottin]

Thank you very much this is what I needed

 

[patcooke]

Thanks for the feedback.

 

[oxicottin]

Well i looked at that area and i must have already got rid of it. My HD is reading it is 73 total

 

[whs]

I suggest you do two things:

1. Run WinDirStat - that will give an overview of all the files on the disk.

2. Run this command in elevated Command Prompt: vssadmin list shadowstorage - that will tell you how much space is allocated for restore points (those do not show in WinDirStat).

 

[oxicottin]

I suggest you do two things:

1. Run WinDirStat - that will give an overview of all the files on the disk.

2. Run this command in elevated Command Prompt: vssadmin list shadowstorage - that will tell you how much space is allocated for restore points (those do not show in WinDirStat).

Thanks for the links and info. I downloaded the WinDirStat and ran and I have no idea what im looking for or at I do see it shows I have only a C: and its 69.GB. I also ran the command and it displayed below. What now? Thanks!

 

[patcooke]

You may have some "junk" files. It is good practice to run a cleanup once every week or so to remove the file left behind by various processes. The standard program used for this is ccleaner and you can download it free from here:

CCleaner - PC Optimization and Cleaning - Free Download

 

[oxicottin]

Patcooke, I run it all the time and I have the Pro version of Ccleaner.

 

[patcooke]

I've never used upgrade installs as they can invariably leave a lot of baggage, not only in terms of space used but accumulated junk. I would have run a clean install and unless there is good reason why you cannot or choose not to do so I would consider that option now.

 

[oxicottin]

well i purchased the upgrade but I read at the time that I could choose a full install within the DVD and it worked as a full install. So it was a full install that I began with. I prob can install again but im happy with the performance just not the size of the drive.

Thanks!

 

[patcooke]

The time to analyze and sort the problem is likely to exceed the time involved in a clean install and I'd go for the clean install including a reformat of the drive - I think it would be the lesser of two evils and worth the time and effort.

 

[whs]

You have 6.9GB of allocated shadow storage and that will grow to over 9GB (maximum). This in itself is not bad, but it depends how big your total C partition is. If you want, the size can be reduced. But then you will have less room for restore points which take 500MB to 1GB each.

Post the WinDirStat results (the whole thing including the colored picture). Maybe we can see something unusual.