Where is the data hiding in XP?

I just installed XP Pro into a 5GB partition and in practically no time at all, Windows is telling me that the space is virtually filled up. The funny thing is that when I take the sum total of all the folders in my C drive, it barely reaches 3GB.

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I just installed XP Pro into a 5GB partition and in practically no time at all, Windows is telling me that the space is virtually filled up. The funny thing is that when I take the sum total of all the folders in my C drive, it barely reaches 3GB. I have the folder options set to show everything and I'm really puzzled as to where the other 2GB of data is hiding out? Any idea where that might be?

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309 Posts
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That is due to system restore. It takes up a huge chunk of your drive and a 5GB partition for XP isn't enough. I used to use 5GB when running Windows 2000 and for that 5GB is plenty but for XP I recommend that the C: partition be 10-15GB depending if you install all your Apps to C or some other drive.
Myself I only install Windows to the C: drive and then all my games have their own partition and all my apps have their own partition and finally my video editing get's it's own partition. Thus my C: partition is only 10GB and it's been more then enough.
 
S

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OP
Mystery solved! When I applied the Service Pack it decided that I needed another Page File and since I have a couple sticks of 512 memory, the space it set aside was a pretty big chunk. I have discovered the truth of needing to set a larger partition for OS purposes than I was used to the last three years running Win2K.
 
There is one thing about XP that I find irritating and can't seem to set straight that being the detail view on the right side of the window. Seems like I am ALWAYS having to change from the tile view XP prefers to the icon setting I prefer. Is there a way to set that for all drive paths on a permanent basis?

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Joined 2001-07-13
yes,
open up explorer and set that window to the view you like then clic on tools> folder options.
then clic on the view tab and you notice at the top it says folder views and you have two options (like current folder) and (reset all folders)
choose like current folder and now everytime you go into explorer the view should always be the icon view you like.
 
 
I'm glad you worked out your problem but just so you know the issue you had might crop up again as you should really have a few more gigs for you C: drive. If all seems well now then maybe wait a bit but maybe on your next install (for whatever reason) maybe add 5GB to your C: for safe keeping.!
 
S

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i have a 5 gig system partition. system restore is at 200meg (the min), and the swap is 512meg.
also ie sets aside some ungodly amount of space for the dang cached pages. if u got broadband set that to about a meg.

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Hi
 
I wouldnt even suggest to install windows xp on something less than
a 30 GB Partition.
V-ram and stuff like that takes plenty of room and i dont really bother to have a second partition where i store all my temp files, V-ram and mem-dumps.. and to make all that cumpute i would have to configure my registry for like 2 hours.
And beside, hd'r beeing as cheap as they are, there are no problem doing anything like that.
I got a Western Digital Raptor 74GB SATA 8MB 10000RPM , for my high end apps and os's. 30gb for windows. and the rest for high opted apps like smpt server, ftp server and http.
 
cheers up mates!
Eirik S.