Where did my memory go?

Question

I have an old 2003 R40, and in the product specs (http://compreviews.about.com/cs/laptops/gr/aaprThinkPadR40.htm) it said i have 40gbs of hard drive space. However, when I check the properties of the driver [(C:)], it says i only have 15.6gbs. Does anyone know why/how?

I'm running Windows XP and i have all the service patches. The total space, not free space is 15.6 gigabytes.

Answer 1

IBM frequently used to divide the hard disk into two sections ("partitions") and then use the second section to store a copy of the first half so that if you had an issue with the laptop and needed tech support they would tell you over the phone how to restore the backup using the copy that is already there.

It was a fast way to do system restores and gave them a lot of flexibility but it also used a lot of space.

The link below mentions the hidden partitions - search for the word "hidden" in the os2warp.be link.

I would advise you to check for these hidden partition(s) to see if that's where the missing space is. You don't mention which OS you are running, so I can't give exact instructions on how to do it.

Partition Magic 8.0 from Symantec will show you these partitition(s) easily and will let you combine them. There's a free download available for a trial version. I'm not sure what the limitations are on the trial, but you should be at least be able to check if these partitions exist as I think they do and then you can decide what to do about them.

Answer 2

Well is the 15 Gb the free space or the total space? If its the total something wrong but if its the free space everything you have is taking up 25 Gb.

Answer 3

Its not memory, its hard drive space.
You must have alot of pictures, programs, movies or something.
Start deleting if you want to recover space.