Hard drive problem.

[sublime8022]

I built my own computer about 2 months ago and ran into a very odd problem. I bought a 500gb Seagate hard drive 500gb/7200/8mb. For some reason if I download a song thats 5000kb it will use up 1gb. Orginally after I set up vista I had 465gb yea that normal but I only have about 25 songs No video No prgrams besides aim and I have 384gb left and its just going down rapidly.


Im using a A.I. lifestyl M2n32-sli deluxe mother board 4gb ram and dual core amd processor. If there are any suggestions please write. I already rebooted the computer and that did not work.

[BoyEngland]

If you use XP, ignore this post.

If you use Vista, this is my only suggestion as to why everything is taking up double space.

Vista uses an automatic-backup system where everything is backed up upon creation and at other times. It's possible that you haven't got a partition on your HDD that stores the backed up data, so it is storing it in the general HDD space, therefore it is saving each file twice on the Hard disk. It should save the original file in the general HDD space, and the back-up in the back-up section.

Mine is partitioned so it does a back-up to there, and my HDD doesn't display the back-up portion when you check your disk space.

It is really difficult to explain so I hope you get at least an idea of what I am trying to say.

[sublime8022]

I get what you are saying but how do I fix it? I use vista and I did notice it said there was a back up and especally when my computer Hybernated it would save everything and I noticed used up alot of memory. If you want pm and if you can or if you have aim please message me because I don't want to keep re-booting my system.

[BoyEngland]

I can honestly say I have no idea how to do it. My HDD came preformatted like it so I couldn't tell you if I wanted to.

I looked through the control panel but didn't find anything. I do remember going into the system restore settings a few weeks back and saw you can set how much disk space you want to use for backing up stuff, but I think that only applies to when you restore your system (hence the location).

I have a horrible feeling you may have to format your HDD and partition it as you set it back up. Don't quote me on that though.

I suggest Google or asking in a computer shop. Just ask them if it possible to partition a HDD without losing data, just make sure they dont do it. They lost all my data just running a virus scan.

[sublime8022]

I called microsoft and dell they both charge 50$ an hour just to tell me how to fix it.....

[Conflicted]

Back up your files with Vista's Back Up Files wizard

From that article, it seems that guy's automatic file backup was turned off in the first screenshot. It also seems from that screenshot, that you can backup certain types of files, so, tell it to quit backing up media files like .mp3/etc.

I wouldn't want it to back up any files, because that's just taking up too much space, unnecessarily.

(I didn't read all the way through that article, and I know it's for how to enable file back-up, but you should be able to find out how to turn it off from the article.)

[sublime8022]

Thank you conflicted that just made my entire few months of trying to figure this out and google searches complete if I could I would hug you right now. LOL thanks alot.


EDIT: sorry it acculy didn't work.... This is what came up. "There are No backups on this computer. Choose witch type to backup files"

[shadow1768]

Does it go up and down or just goes down (the space)?

I remember reading someone having a problem like this and it ended up being a virus and if Conflicted's response didn't solve it then its either A) A virus or B)something in Vista (a bug or some other weird back up type thing).

[sublime8022]

I have never once seen it go up it is a constant down like i said if I download a 5000kb song it thinks its a gb. I called up the place where I got the hard drive they said they have never recived this problem. And other companies charge just for phone assitance because I dont accully own thier product because I made it. At this rate by next summer I will be out of memory. I might buy a external hard drive but I already have a external dvd/cd player. But I used to have avg 120gb hard drive and I had the computer for 5 years and it still had 30gb when I got rid of it. This is 2 months old and used up 1/4 of memory.