Member Avatar for Helltech

Ok, so I just installed 64 Bit Vista on my Raptor 300 Gig harddrive, I've only installed a handful of programs, Microsoft Office, WoW, and some instant messengers. For some reason I have already used 100 gigs? I don't see how this is possible at all, I looked at my local disk C, all of the folders and I should, at MOST, only have used about 40 gigs of space. Any idea on if there is a program that lists every file on a drive and the size of them? Or anything that can give me a similiar effect?

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A concise expert follow‑up for : since ’s Disk Cleanup recovered a big chunk but the free space still looks low, the next step is to locate the actual file/folder consumers rather than guessing. A visual disk‑usage scanner makes the culprits obvious and answers the original question about “a program that lists every file and the size of them.”

Useful tools include WinDirStat, TreeSize (Free) or SpaceSniffer. Running one of these as Administrator and scanning C: produces an ordered list and a treemap so the largest files and folders jump out immediately. Focus first on the top few offenders and note whether they live under Windows, Program Files, or the Users profile — that guides safe cleanup choices.

Common hidden or system items that often explain dozens of gigabytes: the hibernation file (hiberfil.sys, roughly the size of physical RAM), the pagefile (pagefile.sys), System Volume Information (shadow copies), Windows update and SoftwareDistribution caches, large game patch/installation folders (WoW can hold many GBs of temporary patch files), and user AppData temp/browser caches. Hibernation can be removed with powercfg -h off; shadow usage can be inspected with vssadmin list shadowstorage before reclaiming space. Always back up critical data before removing system files or changing pagefile/restore settings.

If ’s raw/unallocated partition idea fits (Disk Management will show it), avoid reformatting if recovered data is needed — a recovery tool like TestDisk is appropriate. Practical workflow: run an analyzer, show hidden/system files, identify top 3 folders, back up anything important, then remove or relocate safely. This will pinpoint where the “missing” 100GB actually went.

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Member Avatar for Yiuca

Probably Shadow Copies & Restore points, Vista creates them often & they often take up chunks of space once plenty of them are created, so my 1st thought would be to perhaps check that. Use Disk cleanup. I'm sure you probs know where & what but just for if not, then in the search bar after clicking the windows button type 'cleanmgr' without the ' obviously. Once that is done, click the tab "More Options" there you can clean up restore points & Shadow copies, see if that does some justice to your HDD space. :)

Member Avatar for Helltech

Thanks, I didn't think I would have to run diskclean up so soon! Jeeze, that helped a LOT, I'm not quite where I think I should be in free space, but that did a lot of help. Thanks again.

Member Avatar for HAcKePeLL

If the matter hasn't been solved then maybe you had 'Wiped' a partition containing that 100 GB which converted it into the unrecognizable 'Raw' format and is the reason its not being displayed by the OS...Download and try a third party partition manager and see if it finds any unallocated/raw space and convert it into FAT32/NTFS accordingly..

Member Avatar for Yiuca

If the matter hasn't been solved then maybe you had 'Wiped' a partition containing that 100 GB which converted it into the unrecognizable 'Raw' format and is the reason its not being displayed by the OS...Download and try a third party partition manager and see if it finds any unallocated/raw space and convert it into FAT32/NTFS accordingly..

Well it does say solved, however you do have a valid point although I don't think that is what is happening here. Regardless you don't need a third party partition manager in Vista, if you type in compmgmt.msc in the search bar or go to Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Computer Management then click Disk Management, Vista will detect raw data & you will be able to extend your primary partition (with the OS on it) to a larger size by adding the raw data to it.

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