BleepingComputer.com: Missing Disk Space

I have almost no disk space immediately following a system recovery using the D drive on my HP laptop. Shouldn't it be back to its original factory conditions with loads of free disk space available? My C drive has very little free space now, but the files and programs within the C drive don't add up to nearly the amount of the drive's space capacity--as far as I can tell by browsing around for large files. Why would a full system recovery leave me with something like 95 megabytes of disk space?

This post has been edited by gergacheck: 30 August 2010 - 11:51 PM

Hello gergacheck,

My first suggestion would be to double-check and see what type of system restore you did on the C drive. Some HP systems will allow either a non-destructive restore where you keep your old files but it repairs/reinstalls factory software and default settings or a destructive restore that formats the drive then installs software back to factory settings.

Samem,

I ran a full recovery from the F11 command because my computer was unable to boot, rather than a system restore that would allow me to keep various files. If what I did was somehow non-destructive and my files were retained, there is no trace of them anywhere, and yet all my disk space is still being used up. It's like the files are gone but the space used by the files is still taken.

gergacheck,

You might want to try running Disk Cleanup on your "C" Drive, and then try defragging it, just to see if that gets rid of some of the clutter.

If your "C" Drive still appears to be too full without explanation, it might be caused by too many system restore files. My memory is a little rusty on this procedure, but I think what you do is to create a new restore point, then delete all the previous ones before that.

Good Luck.

You can use various tools...to review your partition/drive space. Two such follow.

WinDirStat - http://download.cnet.com/WinDirStat/3000-2...4-10614593.html

TreeSize Pro Trial - http://www.jam-software.com/treesize/

Running the chkdsk /r command will also correctly adjust free space on any partition.

Louis

Alright, now I've browsed around using WinDirStat and it appears that I don't have any mystery items using up disk space, but rather that my laptop's total disk space capacity has now been reduced by 2/3. My laptop is rather old and had originally packed ~60 gigs on the C drive and ~13 gigs on the D or recovery drive. Now WinDirStat is telling me that my C drive is ~12.5 gigs and my D drive is ~12 gigs, although properties under the C drive on my laptop still has it listed as ~60 gigs capacity. I've run multiple disk cleanups, eliminated all previous restore points, and a defrag isn't possible without more available disk space. I'm lost.

Have you tried running the chkdsk /r command on your C: that hamluis recommended?