douggoss

Yesterday I looked at my hard drive before setting up a backup to an external drive. I was surprised to find that I had used 361 out of 363GB on the C drive. Knowing I am the only user and knowing the size of the files I had on there, I went to explore the C drive. After confirming my suspecions that "my stuff" (user files with music, photographs, documents) only took up 49GB I began to look for other files that would take up that much space. The folder $clean_tmp was huge, well over 200GB in size. I deleted them but I have a question:

What are the $clean_tmp files and does it hurt to delete them?

I also have another question regarding file sizes. I went to Computer > Explore and right clicked on the C drive - it showed 129 GB being used. I then went to the right hand box there and expanded the C drive and highlighted all the folders, did a right click, and looked at the use - it showed 76 GB.

Question #2: Why is there a difference of 53GB (substantial to me) in the used space showing on the C drive depending on which way I look at it? Surely there is not that much in hidden folders?

Anyhow, thanks for any help!

Acenator

The unaccounted for space could be because of system restore points. From what I understand, they tend to eat up a lot of space on Vista and are hidden files that don't show up in explorer even when you have hidden folders visible.

You should be able to change the amount of space available to System Restore by right clicking on "computer" in the start menu and selecting properties and then opening the System Restore tab (that's how it is in Xp anyways; I don't have a Vista machine available at the moment to see if it's the same, but I believe it is; if not, try going start > programs > accessories > system tools > system restore and selecting the "System Restore Settings" option).

As for the $clean_tmp file, I am not sure what they are for or if it's okay to delete them. If you were able to delete them and aren't having any problems, then I would think it's okay to do so (you might want to wait for someone else to answer this question before you make emptying it on a regular basis, though).

TheOutcaste

The Disk Properties shows the Used/Free space based on the allocated space as shown by the $Bitmap file, so it shows everything.

When you highlight everything and click properties, you only see the files that you have access to. Files in other user accounts won't be included, nor will many system locations, such as the System Volume Information folder (Restore points and Shadow Copies), which could contain files totaling 12% (or more) of the size of your hard drive. Offline Files (Windows\CSC) is another location that won't be included, and can be quite large (If you use that feature). Basically any folder that tells you Access Denied when you click on it won't be included.

I've not seen a folder named $clean_tmp before. Where is/was it located? C:\ or someplace else?
I don't know if Disk Cleanup creates that, or if you may have used a 3rd party cleanup tool, but sounds like it got interrupted and forgot to delete it. It should be save to delete, but you can always rename it for a while first just to be safe.

Adjusting the size used by System Restore is different in Vista, it has to be done from an Elevated Command Prompt (Click Start, type cmd, press CTRL+SHIFT+ENTER) using the vssadmin tool. Type vssadmin /? in an Elevated Prompt for options.