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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  2. Anonymous
    2014-12-31T02:59:56+00:00

    Thank you, Frederik. 

    Since I'm a novice, could you tell me how to start my own thread?

    I think I found a way to get around the problem I mentioned, but I have to run services.msc. When I tried to run, I got the message "The service cannot accept control messages at this time". (Just because I stopped a lot of entries, following Jessen's suggestions, I guess.) I typed "services.msc doesn't run" into our community's search box, but seems this isn't the way to start my own thread.

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  4. Anonymous
    2014-12-30T20:37:45+00:00

    Help!

    When I followed Step 1, I could not "make it as 'stopped'", but just stopped it, and I didn't have to "click apply and then OK". That way I think I stopped maybe 20-30 entries. Then I tried to follow Step 2, but found now there was no network connection available. ("The requested nae is valid, but no data of the requested type was found.") Since I didn't make a note of what entry I stopped, now I'm really stuck. Is there any way I can reverse what I did? Thanks in advance for any help.

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