Need pc help...C:Drive issues, says i'm using triple the space than what is shown.

[Metalhead]

Ok, I just bought a new 1 TB hard drive (Newegg has some killer deals...only $60). Obviously it's 930 gb when all said and done. I split the drive in two, a 492 gb C Drive and a 439 gb E Drive.

I have Vista btw.. When opening My Computer, my C Drive says 329 gb free of 492 gb. Which means I'm using around 160 gb, right?

But when I total up everything within my C (only OS, programs and games on my C), it only comes out to 49 gb! Yes, 49. Programs And Features in my Control Panel shows about 28 gb installed officially. C Drive\Windows shows 16.7 gb being used, and Program Files shows 31 gb.

Some programs of note installed are Chrome, Open Office, AVG, Spybot (with Tea Timer), and Auslogics Disk Defrag. Yup, not much there. Games I have installed are Mass Effect, Fallout 3, Kotor I and II, and Lego Star Wars. I haven't even installed ME2 yet on this new drive.

So, where did that 100 gb go? Any ideas?

[Adam]

Vista creates a partition for certain Vista functions.

The 100 MB system partition is used primarily as BitLocker partition for BitLocker encryption. Additionally, it also holds the Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) and boot files with boot manager for booting up the computer for troubleshooting when there is no Windows 7 installation DVD disc on hand.

[Metalhead]

But does that partition combined with WinRE and the boot files total 100 gigs?

I can try and reinstall Vista again, which I really do not want to do, and hope for some corrections. I may just get Windows 7 if I'm going to install another OS anyway.

[jnhay]

Have you tried getting rid of the second partition and seeing what happens? Maybe you or the computer screwed something up somehow when you did that. Did it show full capacity before you partitioned the drives?

[Metalhead]

I don't think I messed anything up myself...right now it shows my C drive max space at 492 and E at 439. The sum comes to 930, which is correct. It was 930 before I partitioned. I used Manage/Disk Management/Shrink Volume, and then created the second. I just noticed today that my c was all jacked up. This isn't threatening to my pc though, which is good. I still have 329 gigs free lol.

I'm leaning towards getting Windows 7 in the next few days, so this may just end up being a moot head-scratcher. I appreciate the effort and help guys.

[jnhay]

Oh, okay. I didn't realize it was actually recognizing the right amount, but saying the free space estimate was wrong. At least you're not alone, http://www.tek-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=1247489&page=9 . The person had the same problem after he partitioned the drive too.

Maybe you have a quota set too? I think I might be more interested in this problem than you are. haha

BTW, system restore is probably taking a lot of space too. Go to your command line, run as administrator, then type in - "vssadmin list shadowstorage" to list the amount of space used. Your question made me curious about my own system, and I realized that my c drive had about 30gb unaccounted for. I found them by running that command. Also, system restore defaults to 15% of your hard drive. http://forum.notebookreview.com/notebook-dummy-guide-articles/167983-wheres-all-my-disk-space-going-vista.html