Computer Eating Gigabytes Each Day

[lufbra]

We just added a brand new computer to our household, an HP Pavilion, equipped with Windows Vista. We have had the computer for just about two weeks' time, and today I noticed a dramatic change in the size of the C:\ drive. The computer's hard drive size is 320 GB, and of course the programs that came with the computer brings that down quite a bit ("My Computer" shows a 289 GB hard drive). I confess I did not take note of how much space was left on the C:\ drive after I finished loading my own programs onto it, but I believe it might have been somewhere around 263 GB of space free. Now, after only owning the computer for a couple of weeks, and after loading no more programs, I am down to 240 GB! I do record approximately two hours' worth of music (from an online radio station) each day (in MP3 format), but each day I delete these files when I am finished listening to them, and I am also deleting them out of my Recycle Bin. Yesterday I saw my first indication that the hard drive is decreasing rapidly in size, so I paid particular attention to all my activities on the computer: I can say for sure that before recording my last two-hour segment of music I had 243 GB free, after I recorded the two hours' worth of music it still showed 243 GB free, I shut down the computer without having listened to those music files yet (so I have not deleted them), and the only thing I have done with the computer since is shut it down for the day before going to work, and turn it on after coming home from work to go online and read e-mail. Nothing more -- and now the computer is down to 240 GB! All I can think is that there is some automatic process that is happening when I boot the computer, but I cannot imagine what could be eating 3 GB just from turning it on. Does anyone have any thoughts or suggestions that I can try? Thank you! --Lufbra's wife ("Mrs Lufbra")

[AnnMarie]

Hi Mrs Lufbra. Have you tried running Disk Cleanup and getting rid of all temp files?

If this doesnt help, try disabling and then re-enabling System Restore and see if it helps. It can use up to 15% of your disk space and might be gobbling up the GB's. See here (http://vistasupport.mvps.org/turn_off_system_restore.htm) for more help. You need to know that you will lose all accumulated restore points if you do this.

[lufbra]

AnnMarie, thank you so much -- you have nailed the problem! I tried shutting off the System Restore (because I do have a complete backup) and it instantly cleared 33 GB of my hard drive! I think I will turn the System Restore feature back on, now that I understand what's happening. As long as I know it will eventually stop eating up the hard drive and begin to delete Restore Points after awhile, I don't think I would mind if it takes up approximately 15% of my hard drive. I am extremely impressed that I received help so quickly, thank you again so much! --Mrs Lufbra

[AnnMarie]

You are very welcome. :)

I think I will turn the System Restore feature back on

Yep, I would recommend that you do. It's such a handy feature.

[lufbra]

Now that you helped Mrs Lufbra, don't think that there's any chance of a beer from the stash!! :D

[AnnMarie]

Who asked you ole miseryguts. :D