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Regain Gigabytes with XP

by whoozhe
March 1, 2003

Ever wondered where a large chunk of your hard drive disappeared to? If you run XP (this may apply to 2000 and ME) then you have included in the OS a Restore feature.





This feature takes a snapshot of your system and stores it allowing you to revert back to that time should something go amiss.
Here's the catch. Microsoft allocates, by default, up to 12% of you hard drive for these files.

To regain this wasted space and still keep more than enough restore points do the following.

Before you do this make sure your system is stable as this process will delete any current restore points.

Access the System Restore Wizard, click Start, point to All Programs, point to Accessories, point to System Tools, and then click System Restore.

Choose the "System Restore Setting" item and Under the System Restore tab check the "Turn Off System Restore" box and reboot.

Repeat the above but this time move the slider to the left to reduce the amount of space reserved. Anywhere between 200-400 meg will give you up to 30 restore points (depending on your system).

Close the dialog box and in the main area create a new restore point.

Reboot and just look how much extra available disk space you have.

I saved 4 gigs on a measly 20 gig drive.

One note you must log on as an administrator or have Administrator rights.



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