Windows 10: Lost 15 gig disk space after using system restore

I had to use system restore point yesterday. I ended up running it twice to go back to a previous restore point. First time it did it’s job but second time around it flailed to restore. Somewhere in the process of these I have lost approx 15 gig disk space as when checking my free space it plummeted from 65gb to around 50. I ran disk clean up but only got about 1 gig back. So I wonder where this ‘orphaned’ disk space has gone and if there is any chance of getting it back?

thanks, Wayne

:)

 

Win 10 Pro

Hi...Yes I did this afternoon...all logs errors point to the store i mt CBS and DISM logs.

I tried four different system restore points...all failed because of the fact it could not restore my 'Recycle bin' contents because I had cleared it trying make disk space.

I was and am getting improper disk space readings....the system shows only 5 gig left but I know I have way more...cleaning out and trying to make room yesterday did not do a thing in 'My PC' so there's something going on here...

it's a 32 gig drive and should have @ least 14 gig left after the clean up.

I am preparing to to a 'Refresh' or re-install from my 'backup media' I created before...I hope this will restore My 'Mail app'...I'm out of other idea's at this time.

*john

 

Extending partion in windows 10

I have a Windows 10 box, someone has set up badly. The 640 gig drive, is partitioned into a 15 gig C drive, and a 625 gB D drive. The OS is spread across C and D. Of course C is out of space, I'm trying to install Office 2010. Even though I set office
to install on D, its wanting Space on C.

I used Disk Manger and was able to unallocated 200 gig from D. I was hoping to extend the C partition from 15 to 215 gB with this unallocated space. However, the "extend" option Is grayed out for C. I tried rebooting (when in doubt reboot)

same think, the 200 gig unallocated is there, but, the extend option for C is greed out.

Any suggestions?

Thanks James.

 

Windows can be a bit unpredictable in the way it handles free space reporting I find. Firstly, the lost space may well 'reappear' on its own, particularly if you leave the PC on and allow it to run its auto maintenance schedule. Secondly, when you ran a disc clean did you do a full system file clean and (at your own risk) use the 'more options' to delete old restore points. If you do that you WILL lose the restore points you used earlier unless they were the last in the set.

Tbh, restore points are not a great option, if you need to roll back you should ideally be using a disk image (imo).

 

You could run the built in disk cleaner and see if it finds anything.

 

Thanks guys. I lost all my restore points anyway after the second failed restore. When you say built in disk cleaner, is that the same as disk clean up?

i may as suggested give the machine lots of idle time later to see if the automatic maintenances bring any joy

 

Yes, Disk Cleanup. Start it from disk properties so it runs in administrator mode.

 

And you can force maintenance to run from control panel.

 

Antibody Software - WizTree finds the files and folders using the most disk space on your hard drive

[Batch] Windows Cleanup - Pastebin.com

 

Thanks for the suggestions. Well I have given the machine loads of idle time. Then I ran disk clean up. Finally I started the maintenance manually and let that complete. I only got back a couple of gigs. I think doing the system restore has swallowed the data somewhere (and now it’s probably orphaned). Thing is it only reports a usage of a few hundred megabytes when I look at its configure option. Many months ago I used it for some other problem and while it fixed it I think I lost a few gigs as a result and now yesterdays shenanigans shaved off a few more.

I looked at wiztree but when I went to download it reported an unsafe download and blocked it. So I’ll give that a swerve. The pastebin link looks interesting but I don’t really know what I’m looking at or what I’m supposed to do.

I was looking at the folders and apps list and trying to roughly tot up what’s been used in reality compared to what windows reports. Seems I’ve used about 35-40 gigs whilst windows says I’ve used 56. So 15-20 gigs are lost / unaccountable

i have got fast start switched on but I’m not sure if that is taking any space up as I cannot find/see hiberfil.sys on the c: drive even when ensuring the option to view hidden files is checked and as I only have 8 gigs ram I guess that would only of accounted for 5-6 gigs anyway

thanks, Wayne

 

Give TreeSize Free a try - TreeSize Free - Quickly Scan Directory Sizes and Find Space Hogs
It has both an installer & portable vers ... I use the portable vers

One place you might want to check is the C:\Windows\WinSxS\Temp\ ... there are 3 folders under Temp (InFlight, PendingDeletes ,PendingRenames) ... Especially the PendingRenames ... Every time you run sfc /scanow it add files to the PendingRenames folder, so if you've run it a few times, it can get quite large. TrustedInstaller is suppose to clean up the files in those folders, but doesn't always do so.

Warning: DO NOT DELETE ANY OF THOSE FOLDERS !!!!

 

thanks - I worked out how to view hibersys.fil, I didn’t realise you had to uncheck hide system protected files in addition to checking view hidden files. So I can see that along with page file is using about 6 gigs. So that’s now about 10-15 unaccounted for now. I checked the winSxS folder. It used about 6 gigs, there are stacks of folders in there but in the temp folder that resides inside it there is only usage of a few hundred megabytes. The PendingRenames is empty.

so there is definitely lost space, maybe not as bad as I initially thought but for arguments sake about 10 gigs has evaporated. Not loads but as it’s only a small SSD drive with about 110 gigs of available space it’s a high percentage to lose.

i will look to give that TreeSize free a try if windows defender doesn’t take exception to the download. As this pc is a living room box connected to the tv I’m going to have to get to that another day now. My wife is fed up with the tv being taken up with windows troubleshooting, sadly an all too common thing these days.

 

That can definitely happen - you have contents in System Volume Information but Windows reports no restore points. It happened to me.

Check with TreeSize - it will tell you where the space is being used.

The easiest way to delete them if this is the case is boot from PE (Macrium recovery USB would do) or a Linux repair USB and then just delete the directory.

There is a more complicated way here you could try if you don't want to download anything : can not delete old restore points Solved - Page 2 - Windows 7 Help Forums

 

Defender did same for me. *Think That's disappointing as it was among ones that have been recommended regularly here at TF (along with TreeSize and WinDirStat). I'm hopeful it's a false positive but don't criticize you at all for giving it a pass.

Please let us know what you see with TreeSize.

 

Microsoft Store, my bad.