Help!!!!

[thedaxxman]

I need some help with a problem with my laptop's hard drive. I recently formatted it(about three days ago) and reinstalled Windows Vista. Just a few minutes ago, my disk space was about 10 gigs free out of 20 and just now I saw the "Low Disk Space" notification. I was wondering if I could get some help with knowing what's wrong with my computer and how I can fix it. There shouldn't be any viruses on it due to the fact I've had it on twice since i formatted it. I would greatly appreciate anyone willing to help me on this one.

[RageProphetXIII]

ok before we continue. give us specs on this so called computer....how big is your hardrive? all specs you know of.

[RaTix]

Was it a low disk space, or low virtual memory error?

[WV Tech]

Rattix has a great point, if it is low VM error you may need more RAM, but in the mean time you can simply increase the amount of HDD space alloted for VM

[thedaxxman]

To my knowledge it is an 80 gig. Probably a 5400 RPM. I have an HP Compaq 6710b, with Vista Ultimate. And it is the low disk space. I may have found what the problem is, I need some verification with it though, is it possible for Window's shadow copies to do this? I ask because, I was nosing around on here and I went into my Windows folder's properties and went to the "Previous Versions" tab and there were about 6 or 7 versions there and I went into their properties and noticed they were over 10 gigs on my hard drive and I could not delete them. Is there any simple task I can do, I don't want to have to reformat and it can't be too technical.

[RaTix]

I'm a little confused. Your first post said you had 10GB free out of 20, but you say now it's an 80GB HDD. Do you have multiple partitions on there?

And yes, shadow copy (system restore) can take up disk space. Usually not a lot, but if your down to only 10GB free, then it might make the difference.

http://www.mydigitallife.info/2007/07/27/change-and-set-vista-shadow-copy-or-system-restore-disk-space-limit-in-explorer-gui/

[WV Tech]

if this was a diy installation and it was aborted or encountered some type of error causing it to restart the instalation windows would create a new partition for each attempt

[thedaxxman]

Yes, there are partitions, but there are only three. I have C: D: and something called acronis.

[thedaxxman]

Thanks Ratix, that site showed me how to turn that stuff of so in addition to not being annoyed by it, I freed up 5 gigs :D

[Crono]

80 Gigs is kind of small to have so many partitions. I would recommend repartitioning, and having either zero partitions or just one.

[thedaxxman]

Well now it needs to be sent in to tech support, it fell off my couch and now the screen is busted. When I get it back would you mind running me through on how to get rid of the partitions?

[WV Tech]

When you get it back see how many disk drives are listed on it.

[thedaxxman]

Before I had three like I said. C: and D: both took 20 and Acronis was 40

[RaTix]

Did you have a purpose for three partitions? Like different OS's for each? If not, when you get it back I would remove all partitions and just do 1.
Acronis is a disk management utility like partition magic, so not sure why it has a 40gb partition for itself.

[thedaxxman]

It was a school laptop from when I still went to college a year ago so beats me. I just don't know how to get rid of them.