[Mephobia]

I wasn't sure which forum I should post this in. When I click properties on my Local Disk (C it says I've used 164 GB, but it says I've only used 42 GB when I open C: and mark everything that's in there and click properties. Why is there a 122GB difference? I've only installed Windows, printer software, Anti Virus and other various drivers.

 

[REAPER XD]

Did you reinstall windows then that happened? Or did you format your drive pre hand. If you didn't format, it could have left a folder called old.windows or windows.old. You can delete that. You can also try right clicking the folders to try to find the one with the biggest unusual size then locate the culprit. Don't forget that going to folder options and enabling hidden files can aid this search!

 

[mAs81]

Also try disabling the hibernate file :

Click Start, and then type cmd in the Start Search box.
In the search results list, right-click Command Prompt, and then click Run as Administrator.
At the command prompt, type powercfg.exe /hibernate off, and then press Enter.
Type exit, and then press Enter to close the Command Prompt window.

EDIT:
You can also reduce your pagefile,depending on the amount of RAM you have and is being used..
launch sysdm.cpl from the Start menu to access System Properties and then navigate :
Advanced - Performance/Settings - Advanced - Change Virtual memory

 

[Catscratch]

First check for errors and check the option for fixing errors (not bad sectors) It may say that you need to do this on startup, accept and restart computer, it'll check before login screen.

Before selecting everything on root folder, you need to tell windows to show hidden and protected files. On windows 8 it's View menu on explorer window > Options on the far right > View tab, Check Show Hidden files and uncheck Hide protected system files. This will include everything on the count.

And as always, check recycle bin

Enter bin no matter what, sometimes it shows the wrong icon.

 

[JKuhn]

It sounds like you have a bunch of hidden (and possibly large system-) files. I agree with the others, you should enable the viewing of hidden files.

From the screenshot it looks like you're running Win7. Go into the control panel, select large icons (I don't know in which category the next option is), and open "Folder Options". Go to the second tab (Mine is in Afrikaans so I don't know what the English Windoze will say there), and look for an option for hidden files and folders.

 

[JKuhn]

Quote:

Originally Posted by REAPER XD

Did you reinstall windows then that happened? Or did you format your drive pre hand. If you didn't format, it could have left a folder called old.windows or windows.old. You can delete that. You can also try right clicking the folders to try to find the one with the biggest unusual size then locate the culprit. Don't forget that going to folder options and enabling hidden files can aid this search!

I wouldn't delete the Windows.old folder just like that. It can contain important files (documents, etc), so it's best to go through it first.

 

[Mephobia]

Thanks for your replies guys. I didn't realize hidden files wasn't included in the screenshot. Only 2.2GB more shows up when I show hidden files as well.
Quote:

Originally Posted by REAPER XD

Did you reinstall windows then that happened? Or did you format your drive pre hand.You can also try right clicking the folders to try to find the one with the biggest unusual size then locate the culprit. Don't forget that going to folder options and enabling hidden files can aid this search!

I've only installed windows once so I don't have windows.old.
Quote:

Originally Posted by Catscratch

First check for errors and check the option for fixing errors (not bad sectors) It may say that you need to do this on startup, accept and restart computer, it'll check before login screen.

And as always, check recycle bin

Enter bin no matter what, sometimes it shows the wrong icon.

How do I check for errors? Yea, emptied the recycle bin beforehand ^^
Quote:

Originally Posted by mAs81

Also try disabling the hibernate file :

Click Start, and then type cmd in the Start Search box.
In the search results list, right-click Command Prompt, and then click Run as Administrator.
At the command prompt, type powercfg.exe /hibernate off, and then press Enter.
Type exit, and then press Enter to close the Command Prompt window.

EDIT:
You can also reduce your pagefile,depending on the amount of RAM you have and is being used..
launch sysdm.cpl from the Start menu to access System Properties and then navigate :
Advanced - Performance/Settings - Advanced - Change Virtual memory

It went from 74GB free to 122GB free when I turned hibernate off. What does this do exactly?

I didn't reduce the page file yet, but it says in that page file window that the available space on drive C: is 190 GB, which sounds reasonable. Still around 20 GB that is missing though.


Can I change the page filing to another Drive that I have in Raid 1 or should it be on the same one Windows is installed on? Or can I at least change the location of the paging file to another single Drive without any trouble? I've got 64 GB RAM and I usually just use up to 14-16GB max.

Thanks alot again for helping me figuring this out

I appreciate it very much!

 

[JKuhn]

Hibernation saves the contents of your RAM to your HDD, and then shuts down. When you turn your rig back on you're exactly where you left off.

I see your swap file is 65 GB, I'd turn it down to, let's say 8 GB, or even less. I say 8 GB because then you know it won't be too little (4 GB sould also be fine). There's absolutely no need to have that much swap space.

 

[Mephobia]

I just noticed now that the numbers on the screenshot in the first post doesn't make sense to me. If you only look at the Local Disk C: Properties. It says used space is 176 415 932 416 bytes, which they round to 164GB. Free space: 79,4 GB -> 73.9 GB. Capacity: 255.8GB -> 238GB. Why does it say two different numbers in the same window?

I guess that's where the last 20 missing GB is. 190GB free space that the Virtual Memory Window claims there to be + 44 GB it says is used when I mark everything= 134 GB. Although I don't really understand where it is

 

[Mephobia]

Quote:

Originally Posted by JKuhn

Hibernation saves the contents of your RAM to your HDD, and then shuts down. When you turn your rig back on you're exactly where you left off.

I see your swap file is 65 GB, I'd turn it down to, let's say 8 GB, or even less. I say 8 GB because then you know it won't be too little (4 GB sould also be fine). There's absolutely no need to have that much swap space.

What do you think about moving the swap file to another drive or should it be on the same drive as the one windows is installed on?

 

[JKuhn]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mephobia

I just noticed now that the numbers on the screenshot in the first post doesn't make sense to me. If you only look at the Local Disk C: Properties. It says used space is 176 415 932 416 bytes, which they round to 164GB. Free space: 79,4 GB -> 73.9 GB. Capacity: 255.8GB -> 238GB. Why does it say two different numbers in the same window?

I guess that's where the last 20 missing GB is. 190GB free space that the Virtual Memory Window claims there to be + 44 GB it says is used when I mark everything= 134 GB. Although I don't really understand where it is

That's because of different units. Windoze uses binary, so 1 kB (in this case it should be kiB) = 1024 B, while you're using decimal, so 1 kB = 1000B.
Quote:

Originally Posted by Mephobia

What do you think about moving the swap file to another drive or should it be on the same drive as the one windows is installed on?

It's not required to have the swap file on your main partition, but as I said with that large file you're just wasting space. You can also have multiple small swap files, each on another partition/drive.

 

[mAs81]

According to an old rule of thumb, your page file or swap should be "double your RAM" or "1.5x your RAM."
I don't believe that you need that much though,but you don't have to delete it too..There's no rule that will tell you how much paging or swap space you need. The answer depends on what you do with your computer and how much memory you use.
There are no performance benefits to getting rid of a page file, only potential system instability issues where programs might crash if you use all your RAM. You could eliminate the page file to save space on your system drive, but it usually isn't worth it.

 

[JKuhn]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mAs81

According to an old rule of thumb, your page file or swap should be "double your RAM" or "1.5x your RAM."
I don't believe that you need that much though,but you don't have to delete it too..There's no rule that will tell you how much paging or swap space you need. The answer depends on what you do with your computer and how much memory you use.
There are no performance benefits to getting rid of a page file, only potential system instability issues where programs might crash if you use all your RAM. You could eliminate the page file to save space on your system drive, but it usually isn't worth it.

That's why I suggested reducing its size instead. Also keep in mind that @Mephobia has 64 GB RAM and normally uses 14-16 GB max. That leaves plenty of room, and therefore a 4-8 GB swap file won't be too little.

EDIT: Oh, and I don't know about Win7, but Win8.x starts warning you when your RAM usage is over 80%.

 

[mAs81]

It's never happened to me but I believe it should be the same with win7..

The same thing had happened to me after doing a win7 format a few months back, I'm glad that it's all sorted out now,OP..

 

[Mephobia]

Aha, I see. Thanks again guys

Extremely helpful

 

[Techie007]

Unless you turned System Protection off, the space discrepancy you're still seeing is due to the space used by the restore points, which can use many gigabytes (depending on how much software you have installed/updated). They are stored in "C:\System Volume Information" which is a locked folder, so that space doesn't get counted when you select the folders. Open the System Control Panel applet (shortcut: press [Windows]+[Pause/Break]), click System protection in the sidebar on the left, and double-click your C: drive. Here you can choose to reduce its space usage (1 GB is good), or delete all the restore points. Upon clearing out most/all of the restore points, your HDD/folder sizes should be much closer to the same.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mephobia

I just noticed now that the numbers on the screenshot in the first post doesn't make sense to me. If you only look at the Local Disk C: Properties. It says used space is 176 415 932 416 bytes, which they round to 164GB. Free space: 79,4 GB -> 73.9 GB. Capacity: 255.8GB -> 238GB. Why does it say two different numbers in the same window?

Because someone at Microsoft thought it would be a great idea to calculate the numbers using binary math, forgetting that humans use a decimal numbering system. Later on (back in 1998), the IEC officially standardized that KB, MB, GB, and TB are to be divided by 1000s, not 1024s. Rather than publicly admit their fault and correct the file size calculations (as Apple finally did in 2009), Microsoft decided to keep their silly and non-logical numbering system even till now. If you want to read more on the subject, here is a good article (along with a calculator), written by Dr. Alexander Thomas.
Basically, compare the same sets of "space used" with the combined size of all the selected folders for an objective comparison. Since both sets of formatted sizes should be close, they will both be divided the same way, so there will be no "hidden space" contributing to the discrepancy between the HDD's used space and the folders' added up space.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mephobia

What do you think about moving the swap file to another drive or should it be on the same drive as the one windows is installed on?

• If your system has a SSD, or SSD and HDD(s), by all means leave the pagefile on the SSD.
• If your system has multiple SSDs, put the pagefile on any SSD other than C:\.
• If your system has a single HDD (partitioned or not), always leave the pagefile on C:\ to reduce seeking.
• If your system has multiple HDDs, put the pagefile on the first partition of your fastest HDD other than C:\.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mephobia

How do I check for errors? Yea, emptied the recycle bin beforehand ^^

In Windows Explorer, right-click your C:\ drive, click Properties, go to the Tools tab, click [Check now...]. Make sure that Automatically fix file system errors is ticked, and Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors in unticked, and then click [Start]. You will have to reboot your computer to actually perform the scan.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mephobia

It went from 74GB free to 122GB free when I turned hibernate off. What does this do exactly?

For that so save so much space, you must have 64 GB of RAM in your system. Think of hibernation as standby with a save-feature, that turns your computer completely off after the save is complete (instead of leaving the RAM powered on as standby does). As such, it requires a large amount of space proportional to the capacity of your RAM to be able to save your RAM data to when entering hibernation. Most people will never use this feature except on laptops, when the battery runs out and the computer enters hibernation automatically to keep data from being lost.
You can manually enter hibernation (if enabled) by clicking the little arrow by the [Start] -> [Shut down] button, and clicking Hibernate. Also, if you have enough space, you can enable/disable hibernation any time. Since you have so much RAM, you could save a similar amount of space again by disabling or shrinking your pagefile (as discussed earlier).

 

[the 1]

If you have 64 GB of RAM, I would just turn off paging completely. In fact, that's what I do and I only have 8 GB of RAM! It's a different story if you're regularly using that much RAM, but you said you only use a small fraction.

 

[JKuhn]

Quote:

Originally Posted by the 1

If you have 64 GB of RAM, I would just turn off paging completely. In fact, that's what I do and I only have 8 GB of RAM! It's a different story if you're regularly using that much RAM, but you said you only use a small fraction.

I wouldn't turn it off completely, I've heard that some programs can have issues with that.

 

[the 1]

Quote:

Originally Posted by JKuhn

I wouldn't turn it off completely, I've heard that some programs can have issues with that.

Well if the program is using as much memory as there is in the system, then there'll be issues. In that case, enable paging. Correct me if I'm wrong, but a program can't differentiate between main memory and disk memory; it's all just virtual memory. So a system with 32 GB of RAM and a 32 GB page file is the same as a system with 64 GB of RAM and no page file, except the latter will have faster memory access, even if RAM consumption isn't 100% (note: this doesn't happen on Linux), and no page file means fewer writes to the hard disk, which is beneficial for SSDs.

 

[JKuhn]

It's just what I heard.