43 GB System File in System Volume Information on 160 GB partition

[BUKSIS]

I am using Windows Vista since past six months. The computer has a non-system partition with 160GB of space. Whiel cleaning up the system today I found that there is a file named as “{ca0a01b4-d58c-11db-8afb-0013720efba8}{3808876b-c176-4e48-b7ae-04046e6cc752}” and its size is 43GB. As I said this is not the system partition then how such a huge system file can be located on this partition?

I guess there is some problem because earlier System Restore was enabled on this partition but now when I checked, it is disabled. While digging out more I found that this file gets modified on every reboot of my system. Can anyone please tell me what is this file about? Is it sage to delete it?

[LaviN]

Did you tried running Disk CleanUp? If not, do the same and ensure that you have marked to scan the system files as well. Aslo try restoring your system to any earlier Restore Point where you think the file was not present.

Let us know what the result is.

[Hilfiger]

Hello BUKSIS. Can you tell me what is the file extension? Have you searched your registry using regedit to see if the guid appears in the registry to get a programme name?

[BUKSIS]

Thank you very much for your reply guys. As i said it is a SYstem file there is no NO extension. But i guess Hilfiger's suggestion about digging up registry has provided some help.

HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\BackupRestore\FilesNotToBackup\VSS Default Provider

with a value of

\System Volume Information\*{3808876B-C176-4e48-B7AE-04046E6CC752} /s

Let me also tell you that i have 2 other partitions as well including the system partition and one other user partition. Both have 4 and 31 files, respectively, in System Volume Information ending with {3808876B-C176-4e48-B7AE-04046E6CC752} and varying in size from 30 MB to
5.5 GB.

Any idea?

[Judy B]

They're shadow copy files themselves used for restore points and the like. For more help on this, you can checkout the following Article:

Identifying how much disk space is used for restore points in Windows Vista

[jcrhoten]

Hello Everyone,

I granted myself full control NTFS permissions over the System Volume Information folder through the local administrators group.

Used SystemInternals Process Explorer to "find" the guid and close the handle System had on the file.

The files "dropped off" as each file handle was closed.

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[schoone]

I did do many things like turning off indexing service and a had already disabled the volune shadow copy for that drive. I took control over the system volune information and removed the write access from the system account, but it did not matter. Now I limmited the size of the volume shadow copy to the minimum of 320MB and the big file were gone!!!

Regards