Running Out of Disk Space

[IanWaterman]

I am running out of Disk space, the culprit seems to be a Folder directly attached to the C drive with the name _RESTORE. It has a size od 4.25 GB, when I look inside it has 4
subfolders, one of which is TEMP which is taking up 2.21GB and ARCHIVE which is taking up 1.2GB

I have gone to Restore in the operating system and there are only a few restore points back in May and April of this year. Some how system has stopped saving Check points since May. So I do not think this is the root of my problem.

Question

Why are these folders TEMP and ARCHIVE taking up so much space.
When I virus scan these folders nothing suspcious is found by it takes about 30 mins to scan.
TEMP contains hundreds of files with extension .CPY some are dated today.
ARCHIVE contains hundreds of ZIP files prefixed FS and then sequential numbers up to 477.
When I look in side they seem to contain the same type of files as in TEMP with extension .cpy
There are also ZIP files prefixed RG, these contain system ini files.

Can I delete these Folders ARCHIVE and TEMP and free up space?
Or should I just create a new folder called TEMP (rename old one _TEMP_OLD) copy todays files across and delete the old one? Can I do same with ARCHIVE just keeping latest created files.

How do I get PC to start saving checkpoints again?
How can I keep these ARCHIVE and TEMP files under control, I regularly run Disk Clean up and about every 2-3 months Defragmenter but this does not appera to have removed or controlled these folders.

Thank you for any help you can offer.

 

[wolluf]

If you turn system restore off and on again, it will remove old restore points (and so free up most of that 4.25GB). Is lack of free space the reason why no restore points have been saved (no room to save them?)

 

[mattjurado]

If that doesn't clear it up (I've often seen that you turn system restore off and reboot, and everything is still there), try booting to safe mode. Set the Windows Explorer options to view hidden and system files (not sure if these are both ME options, but I think), and try deleting them.

Worst case, boot off a 98 boot disk, and deltree the folders. Start and then go to bed.

Matt J.

Please always take the time to backup any and all data before performing any actions suggested for ANY problem, regardless of how minor a change it might seem. Also test the backup to make sure it is intact.

 

[3838]

thread748-620322

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I actually found out how to clean up the _RESTORE directory.
Here is how I did it.

1) go to control-system and click "performance" tab
2) click on "File System" (lower left hand corner) and a
new "File System Properties" window pops up
3) click on the "Troubleshooting" tab
4) select "Disable System Restore" click "apply"
5) re-boot the system (must)

The TEMP directory (where all the big files are) will be gone and the space is BACK!!

The bar (in file system properties window" to control the RESTORE should also be movable again!

By the way, if it did not work check the selection of the "Disable System Restore" is still on after re-boot and repeat the steps until it works.

Hope this helps.

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