Computer talk – Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7 hard drive space

[dyne]

It appears that while the old GoBack by Norton automatically added safe points to which we could revert if a problem developed, the new System Protection requires that we mannually select safe points to which we may revert. To select these safe points we should wait until our computer is functioning properly and then go to System Properties in the upper left corner, then click upon the System Protection Tab. Then move to the middle of this screen to the heading Protection Selection and select WHICH Drive you wish to protect and CLICK upon it, turning it ON. Then move to the bottom of the screen and click upon CREATE A RESTORE POINT RIGHT NOW FOR THE DRIVES THAT HAVE SYSTEM PROTECTION TURNED ON AND THEN ENTER A DESCRIPTION SUCH AS OCT27. In my computer each time I create a new restore point about 9 more gb of my hard drive is used up.

[FEDUKE404]

Choosing restore points

It appears that while the old GoBack by Norton automatically added safe points to which we could revert if a problem developed, the new System Protection requires that we mannually select safe points to which we may revert. To select these safe points we should wait until our computer is functioning properly and then go to System Properties in the upper left corner, then click upon the System Protection Tab. Then move to the middle of this screen to the heading Protection Selection and select WHICH Drive you wish to protect and CLICK upon it, turning it ON. Then move to the bottom of the screen and click upon CREATE A RESTORE POINT RIGHT NOW FOR THE DRIVES THAT HAVE SYSTEM PROTECTION TURNED ON AND THEN ENTER A DESCRIPTION SUCH AS OCT27. In my computer each time I create a new restore point about 9 gb of my hard drive is used up.

But do you know if this (non-GoBack) method functions for ALL files (such as documents, tax data files, emails, and the like) that may get changed on a daily basis, or just for the overall operating system/registry/software files??

The nice thing about GoBack was that it moved EVERYTHING on your hard drive back to a certain time. (Downside: a newly created file could easily be "lost" unless first saved elsewhere.) You literally could "go back" to where you were previously....frequently when (fill in the blank) still worked!

It has been my experience that "safe points" are automatically created for use by the restore function whenever certain events occur, such as installation of new software or even (perhaps) Microsoft monthly or so upgrades ..... you do check for those, right? Of course, you always have the option of creating a restore point whenever the mood strikes you.

FE

[dyne]

I have NO IDEA what files are being copied or backed up. I have not yet found the directory in which these files reside. Information on this is very difficult to find. It is possible that the software will establish SAFE POINTS periodically but as yet I have not seen this happen in the three days since I set up this in my computer. Does anyone know?

[Bees Knees]

I have NO IDEA what files are being copied or backed up. I have not yet found the directory in which these files reside.

I discovered it when I compared the amount of available hard drive space that it said my C drive had under properties, verses the total size of all of my files on the C drive subtracted from the total size of my C drive. The two did not match.

For example, when I left clicked on the C drive under "my computer," it said it was a 500 Gigabyte hard drive with only 25 gigabytes of free space left. Then when I went into the C drive and highlighted all folders, including the System Folder, the total data in all of those folders took up about 400 gigabytes. 500 minus 400 = 100 gigabytes that I should have had available, yet it said I only had 25 gigabytes available. Where did the other 75 go?

That is when I discovered that the amount of hard drive space used to store the various restore points on my computer was about 75 gigabytes. Thus, those restore data files are not stored in any folder you can access from your C drive. Apparently there are a number of system data files stored on your C drive that cannot be accessed from any folder. The only way you can control the amount of space that is used for those restore points is to change the percentage of hard drive space dedicated to this task. The more space allocated, the further back in time you can go to restore your computer.

As to data files, everyone should be storing backup data files in a location other than your hard drive. If you need to go back to an earlier version of a data file, use those backups to do it. Do not depend on GoBack or the System Protection feature that is available in Windows, because if your hard drive fails, you lose all the restore data as well as the current data. We should all have some kind of daily backup routine that we use to backup data files in a location other than on our computers.

I have two external hard drives that I rotate to do daily backups. One external hard drive is always stored off site. All of my data files get backed up daily to one of these drives.

[FEDUKE404]

Is your hard drive partitioned?

Your hard drive is likely partitioned. Files for "restore" often live on a part of the hard drive physically separate from your normal files on "Drive C."

See what you have on "Drive H" or similar. (The files there may also be "hidden" and/or compressed.)

FE

[Bees Knees]

Yes, there is a partition for restoring. However, I already took that space into account and included it in the 400 Gigabytes of data used on the C drive. The partition is not part of the 75 missing Gigabytes.

[dyne]

I remember that my DOS computers had files which were HIDDEN on the hard drive by the use of the +H attribute. This was done to lessen the chance of such critical files from being altered or deleted. Windows must use the same procedure. My hard drive is supposed to have 320 gb of capacity yet shows only 288 gb. 10 gb of this is for a partition and the remaining 22 gb must be for the hidden files.

[FEDUKE404]

Possible explanations

I don't know enough about the topic to talk intelligently, but this seems to be of some merit to the current discussion:

http://www.computeractive.co.uk/computeractive/q-and-a/2260198/big-gigabyte

Excerpt: "A hard disk sold as 500GB is really closer to 465GB in Windows, and that’s before formatting."

And this:

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,1625225,00.asp

Excerpt: "This question comes up fairly frequently, and it doesn't have anything to do with the operating system. The problem is this: In Windows Explorer and other software applications, terms like megabyte and gigabyte refer to powers of 2, while in the hardware industry they tend to refer to powers of 10. One kilobyte in software is 2 to the 10th power, or 1,024 bytes. In hardware it's 10 to the 3rd power, or 1,000 bytes. The discrepancy mounts as sizes go up..."

(There is also a useful chart at the top of the web page, beneath the date.)


FE

[dyne]

Enter in GOOGLE the words: System Protection Windows 7 and you will find several
websites which explain some of the features.
On one of these websites I found the following:
By default in Windows 7, System Restore creates a scheduled restore point only if no other restore point has
been created in the last 7 days, and before significant system events such as a program or driver installation.

[taxcraft]

Taxes on Linux

If only someone will write tax software for Linux (Apple runs on Linux).