How can I delete System Volume Information on non important drives...please help!!

Hello, I have seven individual hard drives(*see below). I only use one
on the IDE for my OS and the rest operate from SCSI. Now, I have
turned off system restore on the drives I use for storage but I see
System Volume Information has accumulated over 8GB of space on EACH of
those drives!!! What's even worse is that these System Volume
Information files are old and out dated from previous re-formats of OS

Example: H:\System Volume
Information\_restore{822FD8EC-BCE5-41D0-8D4A-029A781BF509}
has over 3.67 GB accumulated.

My dilemma is When I try to delete them, windows wont let me! Please
help me clear up valuable space that System Volume
Information\_restore has put on these drives. Thank You.


================================================== ========================
Drive #1 - WDC WD40 0BB-00CLB0 SCSI Disk Device (37 GB)-Storage
Drive #2 - WDC WD25 00JB-00FUA0 SCSI Disk Device (232 GB)-Storage
Drive #3 - WDC WD20 00JB-34EVA0 SCSI Disk Device (186 GB)-Storage
Drive #4 - WDC WD20 0BB-00AUA1 SCSI Disk Device (18 GB)-Program files
Drive #5 - WDC WD60 0BB-32CXA0 SCSI Disk Device (55 GB)-Storage
Drive #6 - WDC WD12 00BB-53CAA0 SCSI Disk Device (111 GB)-Storage
Drive #7 - WDC WD200BB-75AUA1 (18 GB) (Operating System- Windows XP
Pro)

http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;309531
How to Gain Access to the System Volume Information Folder

Open my computer, right click on the drive that has your OS and select
properties, click Disk Clean up on the General Tab, Click More Options,
then click Clean up for System Restore.

[Onedring]

Your link helped me as well Kaylene. FYI for everyone, in case you don't remember, the system restore also stores unwanted programs. McAfee located a PuP (potentially unwanted program) called PuP.j in the system restore folder. I'm sure it's the one that has been eating up my bandwidth and causing my system to act quirky.

I've decided, and making a suggestion to you readers, to disable permanently the Windows System Restore functionality and instead rely on software which makes a system image backup. This type of data backup and restore is used by large networks in industries where data integrity and storage are crucial. It may take longer than a Windows System restore and you have to be responsible for remembering when to do it, but this way you can keep in consecutive order each system image backup, by date, and select the one you want for backup. If you are concerned about how long it takes to make a system image for restore, start it before you go to bed. : )

Thanks again Kaylene!

Hi Kaylene,

System Restore was never designed to be a backup alternative. Having a good
backup strategy is essential to protecting ones data. System Restore as the
name implies, is a tool to replace system type files and the registry when
they become damaged or corrupted, and will not effect user data. System
Restore is excellent tool if used as soon as possible after a problem is
detected. Yes, if a system is infected at the time a restore point is
created there's a good chance it will exist within the restore point. When
infected file exist within restore points they are dormant and will not
infect the system unless the system is restored using the infected restore
point.

Once a system is cleaned of infection and running normally, it is then time
to purge all existing restore point to avoid reinfection.

The best course of action is to prevent infection/malware in the first
place. And rather than disable System Restore all together understand how it
works and use it to your advantage. In combination with a good backup
strategy System Restore is an excellent tool. It's save me many many time.

All About System Restore in WinXP
http://bertk.mvps.org/index.html

Regards,
Bert Kinney MS-MVP Shell/User
http://bertk.mvps.org
Member: http://dts-l.org

[pradeepbachu]

hi u can use the SLAX 6.0 OPerating system for thedeletion of the Sustem Volume information folder

Originally Posted by Ronald Reitch LMT

Hello, I have seven individual hard drives(*see below). I only use one
on the IDE for my OS and the rest operate from SCSI. Now, I have
turned off system restore on the drives I use for storage but I see
System Volume Information has accumulated over 8GB of space on EACH of
those drives!!! What's even worse is that these System Volume
Information files are old and out dated from previous re-formats of OS

Example: H:\System Volume
Information\_restore{822FD8EC-BCE5-41D0-8D4A-029A781BF509}
has over 3.67 GB accumulated.

My dilemma is When I try to delete them, windows wont let me! Please
help me clear up valuable space that System Volume
Information\_restore has put on these drives. Thank You.


================================================== ========================
Drive #1 - WDC WD40 0BB-00CLB0 SCSI Disk Device (37 GB)-Storage
Drive #2 - WDC WD25 00JB-00FUA0 SCSI Disk Device (232 GB)-Storage
Drive #3 - WDC WD20 00JB-34EVA0 SCSI Disk Device (186 GB)-Storage
Drive #4 - WDC WD20 0BB-00AUA1 SCSI Disk Device (18 GB)-Program files
Drive #5 - WDC WD60 0BB-32CXA0 SCSI Disk Device (55 GB)-Storage
Drive #6 - WDC WD12 00BB-53CAA0 SCSI Disk Device (111 GB)-Storage
Drive #7 - WDC WD200BB-75AUA1 (18 GB) (Operating System- Windows XP
Pro)

Turn off System Restore to remove "System Volume Information" folders.

[typ0w]

Sorry to Bump thsi old thread. I've been dealing with a similar problem. however. After i turned of Sys restore and deleted the folder, it re-created itself and i didnt have the permission to open/view/delete. So i rebooted in safe mode, and added users\administrators as a permission and deleted it again. upon reboot it re-creates itself.

I'm currently runnign XP on the 3rd Install after format day2 Vs virus
running Nod32 and AVG which are not detecting anything other then a periodic small virus that they are deleting. the original virus that i noticed was called virut, which was cloging my sockets so i couldn't update anti virus or get online.

You should not try to delete the contents of the System Volume
Information folder. It contains more than just restore points. Why do
you think deleting is necessary?

Please don't delete previous posts, thanks.


You need to disable System Restore for a drive first to delete the folder.

[askwong]

Hi,
I assume you have turned off the System Restore service on your XP computer.
You can then download a program called WinDirStat from Download.com.
After you install this program, fire it up.
The program will list out all your hard drives folders as well as in graphical form.
You can then access the System Volume Information folder.
Just highlight the "_restore{ .....}" folder and then go to the menu to choose "delete". Then the folder will be deleted.
Just a remark, you can even select to delete to recycle bin or permanently.
(Of course, logically no one will leave the files in the recycle bin because our objective is to get rid of all such files and reclaim the space on the hard drives.)
You have no need to restart your computer after deleting the restore point data files.

[stopar]

Hi, I came across this problem and found nothing really useful, but finally I found easy solution. So here's my share ;-)

I use this batch to conserve space on flash drives etc...:

X:
echo y|cacls "System Volume Information" /T /P Everyone:F
echo y|rd /s "System Volume Information"
pause

where X: is drive, where you want to get rid of that folder, which is really not needed whatsoever, if you have windows recovery turned off. This works on Windows XP home too.

If you have localized windows, you will have to replace "y" for equivallent letter for "yes" in your langauge.

Other cool trick, how to gain some extra space, is to use 64kB clusters, if you intend to store only large files (movies on flash drive for example) and set ntfs log (which has normally around 60 megabytes) to minumum:

format X: /fs:NTFS /a:64k /q
chkdsk X: /l:2048

Note, that if you want to change cluster size, you will have to format the volume, which will destroy everything on drive X:, chkdsk /l you can use safely on volume with data.

For me this works fine, but use at your own risk ;-)

[deocharlesc]

You should not try to delete the contents of the System Volume
Information folder. It contains more than just restore points. Why do
you think deleting is necessary?

i think this is the most loser question to ask...

when someone ask a favor and question your knowledge whether you know how to do it... someone else is asking why you want to do it? There is no WHY for others, it is only WHY in yourself. you help nobody..

How you want to clean your desk may not as clean as others want their desk to be clean! I think you should find the answer and show what you can before you ask WHY.

[darbski]

Originally Posted by stopar

X:
echo y|cacls "System Volume Information" /T /P Everyone:F
echo y|rd /s "System Volume Information"
pause

Please correct this code.

X:
cd\
echo y|cacls "System Volume Information" /T /P Everyone:F
echo y|rd /s "System Volume Information"
pause

Originally Posted by stopar

If you have localized windows, you will have to replace "y" for equivallent letter for "yes" in your langauge.

Please correct Your user manual:

If you have localized windows, you will have to replace "y" for equivallent letter for "yes" and "Everyone" in your langauge.

.