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
    2017-09-04T13:48:47+00:00

    i had that same problem 

    in my D drive system volume information took space about 43.5 gb i think it was the same reason due to defragmentation of that particular drive (D drive)

    what i did after searching in the google for hours was as follows

    step 1) open control panel

    step 2) open click system and security

    step 3) click on system (or just press windows key + pause in keyboard)

    step 4) click on system protection ( a prompt will appear under which click on  system protection)

    step 5) click on the specific drive in which that problem is  

    step 6) click on configure click on delete  a prompt will appear and then click on continue 

    then click OK that's it 

    problem solved

    if u have followed all the steps correctly then it should work correctly 

    i am using windows 8.1 the procedure is same in windows 10

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  2. Anonymous
    2017-09-23T10:26:31+00:00

    I have used Everything.exe and it reports that I have 7 system volume information folders on my C: drive with a total space used of 52.3GB. I also have over 200 services that are marked "Started" so doing a stopped to all those seems beyond the imagination. This partition of my 1TB SSD is just using too much space for SVI so how can I get to the SVI itself. Any helpful info on this, given the sizes and numbers, would be appreciated.

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  3. Anonymous
    2017-09-23T10:55:28+00:00

    I tried this but it did nothing for me. I still have all 8 of the System Volume Information folders that I cannot alter. I cannot get access to these SVIs so 52GB of SSD space is wasted. I have an 8TB backup but only 72GB of working space on the SSD. I need to get access to the SVI and previous articles info did not work for me on a Win 7 Home Premium system. Here is a picture of what I am dealing with. Thanks for any help.

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  4. Anonymous
    2017-09-23T11:40:43+00:00

    Thank YOU so much, I got back about 80GB of space. I used everything.exe to show me what was tying up all my space and it was the huge System Volume information files. I turned of restore for a second to let it flush those big restore files and now I have half the system free. Thank you.

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