How do I delete huge files from System Volume Information?

Anonymous
2011-08-16T11:37:52+00:00

I have three large hard disks that I use to store backups of the system.  Some program -- I think it was the defragmenter -- caused Win 7 to place huge files (> 4 GB) in System Volume Information.  Nothing I do wil let me delete these files.  I cannot even take ownership of them.  When I try to take ownership of either the file or of System Volume Information I receive an "Access is denied" error on the file name.  Nothing should prevent an administrator from taking ownership of any file on his system.  How can I delete these huge files?  Please do not answer "Use Disk Cleanup to delete all but the last restore point."  That runs, but it deletes nothing.  On a previous installation of Win 7, I could take ownership of System Volume Information and delete its contents, but ot on this new installation.

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Anonymous
2011-08-17T10:05:51+00:00

Hello,

The System Volume information folder keeps the Restore point entries. Usually it is not recommended to delete the entries from the System volume information.

Step 1 : Stop the Volume shadow copy service.

a:  Go to Start - Run and type Services.msc then press enter.

b: Under the Status column look for any entries that read as "Started", make it as “Stopped”.

**c:**Click apply and then ok.

Step 2 : Then take ownership of the System volume Information folder and then try to delete its contents.

How do I open a file if I get an access denied message?

Hope that helps.

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  1. Anonymous
    2014-09-07T17:18:32+00:00

    You can manage restore points using cCleaner:

    Paragraph 4.16 here:

    http://www.gerryscomputertips.co.uk/maintenance4a.htm

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  2. Anonymous
    2014-09-07T16:04:34+00:00

    I agree with Gerry.  I had a problem with restore points not being automatically purged on an old Vista system.  It ate up all my disk space and this approach did the trick.  I had to keep doing it periodically as the computer never started to automatically purge restore points but it was not that hard to do.  The computer finally stopped working later that year so that may have been the cause.

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  3. Anonymous
    2014-08-19T17:37:10+00:00

    Possibly a better course of action for this to examine your Shadow Copy Storage. 

    1. Open cmd in an elevated prompt
    2. Type vssadmin list shadowstorage

    -This will list where your shadow copies are stored along with how much space they are taking up.  By default, the max size is unrestricted and can consume your entire drive.

    example;

    Shadow Copy Storage association

       For volume: (E:)\?\Volume{specific numbers}\

       Shadow Copy Storage volume: (E:)\?\Volume{specific numbers}\

       Used Shadow Copy Storage space: 207.871 GB (67%)

       Allocated Shadow Copy Storage space: 210.696 GB (67%)

       Maximum Shadow Copy Storage space: UNBOUNDED (100%)

    You can see that the storage for the e:\ on the e:\ is consuming 210 GB in this instance.  To fix this issue, create a max size for the storage space using;

    vssadmin resize shadowstorage /for=driveLetter: /on=driveLetter: /maxsize=desiredSize sizePrefix

    where driveLetter is your drive instance and the sizePrefix is MB, GB, TB, or PB as desired.  Hope this helps!

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  4. Anonymous
    2014-01-11T20:53:01+00:00

    This worked for me.  Don't know why my Vista system started using up so much diskspace for the restore info lately.  I played around and the files would go away but I was not sure how that happened.  This is a cleaner way of doing it.  Thanks much.

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