How can I recover disk space used up by System Volume Information

Question

My laptop has 120GB disk space. It runs Windows 7. When I use 'SpaceSniffer', find out that 'System Volume Information' uses up 32G of space. And it has 5 files: 20.6 G, 3.4 G, 3.2G, 3.1 G, 2.4 G.

How can I recovered those space used by System Volume Information

Any my windows 7 restore point is already off.

Thank you.

Answer 1

Here are some commands that you could use in the Command Prompt console in administrator mode in order to view and resize the space allocated for System Volume Information:

1. To see the space allocated and used for System Volume Information:

   • Open Command Prompt with “Run as Administrator” option

   • Type in: vssadmin list shadowstorage

   • You will see Used Space, Allocated Space and Maximum Space for System Volume Information

2. To see the restore information stored therein:

   • Use in the same console command: vssadmin list shadows

3. To resize the maximum allocated space:

   • Type in command: vssadmin resize shadowstorage /on=[here add the drive letter]: /For=[here add the drive letter]: /Maxsize=[here add the maximum size]

   • E.g., vssadmin resize shadowstorage /on=C: /For=C: /Maxsize=4GB

   • You will see a prompt confirming resize done

   • You can check the status again using the command discussed in point 1 above

4. Just to get rid of the space already consumed, but sticking to the same size of max-size as before:

   • Do actions as per step 3 to set the max-size t, say, 1GB

   • If you check now, most likely you’ll see that used space is now 0KB

   • Do the resize again and set it back to what it was before

   • Check your disk space availability in Windows Explorer, you should see the reclaim is done!

Hope this helps.

Answer 2

Most of that is from System Restore although it does sound pretty high. Go to Control Panel - System - System Protection to see how much space is allocated to system restore. Adjust as necessary. Sometimes if you re-install windows you get system restore data from a previous install left on disk - the best way to get rid of this is to boot from a Linux live CD like Backtrack 5 and delete the files.

Answer 3

You have it turned off, but the restore points are still there.

Goto to Desktop Cleanup: Start Menu\Programs\Accessories\System Tools\Disk Cleanup

and then click "Clean up System Files" - More options