wheres my hard drive space gone????

[MP3Architect]

i have had my macbook pro split for over a year now. 10gb for windows and 90gb for mac.

i only use autocad, rhino, itunes and macdrive on pc side. nothing else.

somehow i only have like 800mb free though. it says im using 9gb of hard drive space. and i can't figure out where its going. i recall windows taking up 4gigs or so. and with the loaded programs i should still have like 3-4gigs free. WTF?

i'd reload windows only my cd's are in the US and ill be in the UK for a while.
any ideas?

when i look at C:/ i notice im using

1.01 GB in Program Files
1.16 GB in Documents and Settings
2.51 GB in Windows
the other folders in C:/ are like just a few mb's.

Wheres the rest of my 10 gigs going? anyone?

 

[yustynn]

Windows is screwed up. There are probably some hidden files you're not able to see (tweak the settings...can't remember how, sorry). What does it say when you view the size of your C drive?

Oh and just incase, empty your recycle bin

 

[Tallest Skil]

First, get MacFUSE and sell your MacDrive. MacFUSE is NTFS write support for OS X, so you can drag and drop files straight from your Mac side over to the Windows partition HDD (PUT THEM ON YOUR DESKTOP).

Second, now that you have that, go into your Windows partition from the Mac side (Program Files) and get rid of all of the Microtard programs that came with Windows that you don't use. I don't mean run the "Uninstaller", I mean drag the programs' folders to the trash in OS X. Just kill them. Erase them entirely. Windows won't complain because it has nothing on which to base any complaints. Don't inadvertently move your drivers, though. Just do programs made by Microsoft.

Third, Windows just DOES that. It expands to fill the space that it's given. I run Vista Ultimate on a 27GB partition. The OS install was around eight gigs. I pulled ALL of the Microsoft programs on the Windows side and all other programs as well, because I see no reason to use them (I have Safari because it needs a browser and iTunes as a hardwired backup for fixing my iPhone). That makes it about 7.5GB. I have The Orange Box installed on it. That's thirteen gigs. I should have about 6GB left, right? WRONG! 400MB. I was like, "Tanj in torment is going on here?!" Then Vista popped up with the whole "C:\ Drive is getting full" window and I ran the thing to see what files were taking up my space. I FORGET (sorry!) what it was called, but it was a generic repository for files and it was 2GB large. 4GB are still unaccounted for, but Windows seems to want to keep at least some of the things you delete indefinitely. (And possibly all saved states of every mouse movement you've ever done...)

 

[velocityg4]

when i look at C:/ i notice im using

1.01 GB in Program Files
1.16 GB in Documents and Settings
2.51 GB in Windows
the other folders in C:/ are like just a few mb's.

Wheres the rest of my 10 gigs going? anyone?

Their are two hidden files likely taking up space. Your swap file, which is the virtual memory, and your restore points.

The restore points are likely taking up a lot of space since one is created for every system change, ie software updates, plus daily restore points and others created just for the heck of it. Turn system restore off in Windows it usually does not work anyways.

Also if you really need space and you have downloaded Microsoft Updates you need to delete the uninstaller files for the hotfixes. These files are created incase the hotfixe's bork your computer and take up the same amount of space as the actual downloads. You will need to google this as I am not sure how you remove the files since I have always had much more HD space than needed on my Windows machines.

 

[tersono]

i have had my macbook pro split for over a year now. 10gb for windows and 90gb for mac.

i only use autocad, rhino, itunes and macdrive on pc side. nothing else.

somehow i only have like 800mb free though. it says im using 9gb of hard drive space. and i can't figure out where its going. i recall windows taking up 4gigs or so. and with the loaded programs i should still have like 3-4gigs free. WTF?

i'd reload windows only my cd's are in the US and ill be in the UK for a while.
any ideas?

when i look at C:/ i notice im using

1.01 GB in Program Files
1.16 GB in Documents and Settings
2.51 GB in Windows
the other folders in C:/ are like just a few mb's.

Wheres the rest of my 10 gigs going? anyone?

Classic mistake - you forgot the swap file. (Done it myself - embarassing when it's a server (!) lol). If your MB has 4gb RAM, your Windows pagefile will also be 4gb. You can reduce that setting the pagefile to a lower level manually, but you may find that AutoCAD and Rhino performance suffers.

To do it, right click on 'My computer' and head on in to the advanced settings tab.

 

[XianPalin]

Just in case it is actually in files somewhere:

Use a program called Windirstat, it will scan your hard drive and tell you where all the space is going.

There is a similar program for OS X (I believe they're based around the same code) called Disk Inventory X. I use them both whenever I can't figure out where a bunch of space went.

 

[MP3Architect]

thanks everyone.

using finder on OSX i was able to find the "RAM file". taking a good 2gb. bitch.
it was called pagefile.sys

but i also found a file called FILE0001.CHK in a folder @ C:/FOUND.004
what the fudge is that?!?! its also 2gb.
googling around it looks like part of the windows backup stuff? can anyone confirm this? is it safe to delete? gosh i REALLY hate windows. can't wait for Rhino to be off Mac Beta.

 

[diamond.g]

thanks everyone.

using finder on OSX i was able to find the "RAM file". taking a good 2gb. bitch.
it was called pagefile.sys

but i also found a file called FILE0001.CHK in a folder @ C:/FOUND.004
what the fudge is that?!?! its also 2gb.
googling around it looks like part of the windows backup stuff? can anyone confirm this? is it safe to delete? gosh i REALLY hate windows. can't wait for Rhino to be off Mac Beta.

pagefile.sys is the Windows page file. Think of the same thing as OS X virtual memory. You can (as another poster said before) reduce the size of the pagefile. If you have enough RAM you could disable it altogether (I usually do). You shouldn't suffer any ill consequence as long as Windows has enough RAM.

The CHK file is created when Windows detects a file system corruption. I forget how to see what the CHK file usually is, but if all your files are fine I would just delete it.

 

[The Flashing Fi]

If you have hibernation enabled, it will be as large as your memory on the computer. You also have restore points, and the pagefile (which I don't recommend deleting, just reduce the size of it).

Also, don't go into Mac OS X and start deleting programs. That's a great way to mess something up (like your registry). You don't want your registry messed up and all these uninstallers scattered around your hard drive.

 

[MP3Architect]

after looking up stuff online i decided to delete the 2gig CHK file (backed it up first just in case on an xternal).
So far no problems. and i have an extra 2gigs now! woohoo!
not going to mess with the sys file as i need my full RAM for rendering.

 

[diamond.g]

after looking up stuff online i decided to delete the 2gig CHK file (backed it up first just in case on an xternal).
So far no problems. and i have an extra 2gigs now! woohoo!
not going to mess with the sys file as i need my full RAM for rendering.

That is good. How much RAM does your MBP have? Do you use bootcamp? You may be able to reduce the size of the pagefile to about 256MB. If you have enough RAM you shouldn't notice a difference in performance.

 

[MP3Architect]

That is good. How much RAM does your MBP have? Do you use bootcamp? You may be able to reduce the size of the pagefile to about 256MB. If you have enough RAM you shouldn't notice a difference in performance.

yes i used bootcamp to split the hard drive.
im running 2gig of ram. from what ive been reading changing the pagefile thing would affect the usage of my 2gigs. after cleaning up that other file and finding a few other random large files on my system im now at 3gigs free. which makes me very happy. gives my system at least some room to breath.

 

[diamond.g]

yes i used bootcamp to split the hard drive.
im running 2gig of ram. from what ive been reading changing the pagefile thing would affect the usage of my 2gigs. after cleaning up that other file and finding a few other random large files on my system im now at 3gigs free. which makes me very happy. gives my system at least some room to breath.

Not having a pagefile, or having a small one, would force Windows and programs to actually use the 2GB of RAM present. If everything is working great, then I wouldn't worry about it. It is just a favorite place to reduce the bloat.