System Volume Information folder occupied 100 gb

[Tejo]

I have been noticing recently, my C drive gets occupied fully even if there are no bigger programs installed.
Out of 150gb, after uninstalling few programs, the space left was 30gb. Day by day it started decreasing and i saw 20gb today.

I used the disk cleanup tool and it shows only 100mb after selecting all fields.

I was worried still that space was not freeing and ran this program WinDirStat

System Volume information folder occupies 75% of space - meaning 100gb.
There are lot of files which were around 1gb - 2gb and they are created from 2013.


Can somebody tell me why 100 gb? I read that this service is important but why is it taking this much of space..please help to remove these unwanted older files if any.

 

[SaiyanGoku]

The space is most probably occupied by system restore. to free that space and delete old restore points

Go to Control Panel -> System
Click on System Protection
Select C: drive and click Configure
Click on Delete
Click OK -> OK

 

[Tejo]

The space is most probably occupied by system restore. to free that space and delete old restore points

Go to Control Panel -> System
Click on System Protection
Select C: drive and click Configure
Click on Delete

Yup..did the same thing before posting here...But still nothing's changed..

 

[SaiyanGoku]

^ then try turning off the system restore for all partitions

HDD space freeing tip: if you don't hibernate your laptop, then open an elevated Command Prompt and enter the following:

powercfg -h off

if you use hibernation, then enter the following:

powercfg -h -size 50

 

[Tejo]

^ then try turning off the system restore for all partitions

HDD space freeing tip: if you don't hibernate your laptop, then open an elevated Command Prompt and enter the following:


if you use hibernation, then enter the following:

hibernation is already disabled a month ago.

System restore was 'on' only for C drive. Is it good to disable system restore ?

 

[SaiyanGoku]

hibernation is already disabled a month ago.

System restore was 'on' only for C drive. Is it good to disable system restore ?

I have disabled system restore because even if anything goes horribly wrong, system restore may not always work. I use a live Linux Mint bootable USB for that case to recover user data. Proceed with caution.

 

[Flash]

Use 3rd party apps like CCleaner, Glary utilities, Tune up and read your system.
It will show you where your space is held up...

 

[meetdilip]

Try trail version of TuneUp Utilities.

 

[Tejo]

Use 3rd party apps like CCleaner, Glary utilities, Tune up and read your system.
It will show you where your space is held up...

Try trail version of TuneUp Utilities.

yup...used CCleaner and Advanced System Care, but they are not able to clean these files.

I have even tried deleting them manually. But nothing shows up..It asks whether to delete the files, and if we press yes, those files are still present.

I googled about it and read that those files are shadow copies. I even tried methods like disabling and enabling system restore; disk cleanup but still those files are sitting up in the harddisk

 

[sling-shot]

Try to delete using Unlocker utility.

Alternatively delete from a Linux live system like Knoppix.

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Go into System Restore settings and check if a limit has been applied for the storage space to be used for Restore. If not set it to a reasonable limit for you such as 10% or so for the C drive.
If no limit has been set, it could have been the reason for your predicament.

 

[Tejo]

Try to delete using Unlocker utility.

Alternatively delete from a Linux live system like Knoppix.

--------

Go into System Restore settings and check if a limit has been applied for the storage space to be used for Restore. If not set it to a reasonable limit for you such as 10% or so for the C drive.
If no limit has been set, it could have been the reason for your predicament.

Actually limit was put as "0" previously. Yesterday I set to 5% hoping it would delete the old files, but it didn't.
So deleting those manually (using linux / any utility) shouldn't pose a problem to the system right?

 

[sling-shot]

Not as such. It may not allow you to do a restore. But the best way forward for you now is to disable system restore altogether, go into Linux and delete all the shadow copies, then come back into Windows, make sure you have your disk space back with you, make a full filesystem check just to be sure under safe mode, then set say a 5% limit for system restore after turning it on, then create a fresh restore point.

 

[Vyom]

Get SpaceSniffer and post a screenshot of the C Drive.
It shows a block diagram with each block representing the space taken graphically.

 

[sling-shot]

I think WinDirStat has already done that for him.

 

[Vyom]

The reason why I said that is that, usually System Volume Information folder is not even accessible. Even if you try to see files in command prompt in admin mode.
So I had a doubt whether OP is slightly confused.

Also, the main thing which this folder contains is System Restore Point. I hope OP is able to delete the old restore points. That should definitely free up space, if this folder IS taking 100 GBs!

 

[Tejo]

The reason why I said that is that, usually System Volume Information folder is not even accessible. Even if you try to see files in command prompt in admin mode.
So I had a doubt whether OP is slightly confused.

Also, the main thing which this folder contains is System Restore Point. I hope OP is able to delete the old restore points. That should definitely free up space, if this folder IS taking 100 GBs!

Hi Vyom, plz check these screenshots..

.

I ran the WinDirStat as admin, so it showed this.

- - - Updated - - -

Not as such. It may not allow you to do a restore. But the best way forward for you now is to disable system restore altogether, go into Linux and delete all the shadow copies, then come back into Windows, make sure you have your disk space back with you, make a full filesystem check just to be sure under safe mode, then set say a 5% limit for system restore after turning it on, then create a fresh restore point.

seems good enough to try this. But I am not sure which files to delete...so just guessing if its better to delete all the files which are older than 3 months..anyway if this procedure creates any OS problems, then i am totally ...

one thing i tried today is, using file shredder..when i try this way it says that file is being used... (last year file still being used ?? )

 

[sling-shot]

Please look up a software called Unlocker. It is there on FileHippo.com - Download Free Software. Once installed you would be able to delete even the pesky files happily. If not it would schedule the file for deletion before full bootup so that no one can lock it.

 

[Vyom]

Can't view the uploaded attachment. I recommend people to use online image sharing services like minus.com.
Anyway, I leave the OP to find the solution of this problem by many suggestions recommended here by many members.