Reclaim or Resize disk space from 'system volume information' by Britec

**How to Reclaim Hard Drive Space by Resizing the System Volume Information Folder in Windows 7**

In this video, we will guide you through the process of reclaiming hard drive space by resizing the **System Volume Information** folder on a Windows 7 operating system. This method allows you to either free up disk space or allocate more space if needed. Whether your system volume folder is taking up too much space or not enough, this tutorial will show you how to adjust it accordingly.

---

### Step 1: Open the Command Prompt as Administrator

To begin, we need to access the Command Prompt with administrator privileges. Here's how:

1. **Open the Run Box**: Press `Windows + R` on your keyboard to open the Run dialog box.

2. **Launch CMD**: Type `CMD` into the Run box and press `Enter`.

3. **Run as Administrator**: Right-click on the Command Prompt icon that appears in the list of applications, then select "Run as administrator." You may be prompted to confirm this action—click "Yes."

Once you have the Command Prompt open, you're ready to proceed.

---

### Step 2: Check Current Shadow Storage Settings

The next step is to view the current settings for your System Volume Information folder. This will help you determine how much space it is currently using and whether resizing is necessary.

1. **Type the Following Commands**:

- Type `vssadmin list shadow storage` in the Command Prompt.

- Press `Enter`.

2. **Review the Output**: The command will display information about your current Shadow Storage configuration, including the allocated size and maximum allowed size. For example:

```

Use: 26,160 MB

Allocated: 498,465 MB

Maximum: 1,494,465 MB

```

This output shows how much space is currently being used and allocated for Shadow Storage.

---

### Step 3: Resize the Shadow Storage

Now that you know your current settings, you can resize the Shadow Storage to either reclaim space or increase it. Here's how:

1. **Type the Following Command**:

- Type `vssadmin resize shadow storage /for=C:\ /maxsize=3GB` in the Command Prompt.

- Replace `C:\` with your system drive if necessary and adjust the size (`3GB`) to suit your needs.

2. **Execute the Command**: Press `Enter` to execute the command. The system will process the resizing request, which may take a few moments.

3. **Verify Success**: After the command completes, you should see a message indicating that the Shadow Storage was successfully resized.

---

### Step 4: Check the New Configuration

To ensure the resize was successful and to confirm your new settings, repeat the `vssadmin list shadow storage` command:

1. **Type the Command**:

- Type `vssadmin list shadow storage` in the Command Prompt.

- Press `Enter`.

2. **Review the Output**: The updated information should reflect the changes you made. For example:

```

Use: 26,160 MB

Allocated: 3,072 MB

Maximum: 3,072 MB

```

This output confirms that the Shadow Storage has been resized to the new configuration.

---

### Additional Notes

- **Reducing Space**: If you are reducing the allocated space, ensure that your system does not rely heavily on restore points. A smaller allocation may limit the number of restore points available.

- **Increasing Space**: If you are increasing the allocated space, consider how many restore points you need and whether this adjustment aligns with your system's requirements.

---

### Conclusion

By following these steps, you can easily resize the System Volume Information folder to reclaim or allocate additional disk space on your Windows 7 computer. This method is particularly useful for users with limited storage capacity, such as those using laptops with smaller hard drives. For more information and other helpful tutorials, visit [b.co](https://www.b.co). Thanks for watching, and don't forget to subscribe for more videos!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enin this video I'll going be showing you how to reclaim back some of your hard drive space by resizing the system volume information folder on a Windows 7 operating system now this works in both ways you can either reclaim back some of the space or you can make it bigger so if you've not got enough space in your system Vol uh system volume folder you can actually make it bigger or take it away so let's have a little look what we need to do we need to go to the Run box here and put CMD and then we need to right click and then run as administrator here okay click yes here now we got our Command Prompt Box open okay so what I want to do here is put VSS admin okay I'll do it nice and slow so you can see what I'm doing and then put in their list and I'll need to put in Shadow storage okay now this gives us all the information that we want to know about our system volume information folder okay so as you can see we've got the use Shadow uh storage space is 26 16 mbes well a little bit bigger than that but as you can see it there allocated Shadow uh storage is at 498 and we've also got uh maximum Shadow storage okay so we got 1.49 uh 46 GB so why I can do here now say for instance what I've had reports on is some people are saying that they've got 20 30 gigs of this here or 40 gigs now if you've got a a laptop that's only got a small uh small amount of space and you want to claim some of that back you can actually reduce it by resizing in this okay but also it works the other way around if you've not got enough space here and you want to allocate a bit more space because you like to have a lot of restore points then you can do that also so what we need to do is type vsss and uh admin like so and then resize like that and then Shadow storage yeah and space then for slash then on just make sure you get the spaces in there yeah cuz a lot of people sometimes miss the spaces and it goes wrong uh so C colon I'm going to do this all lowercase uh and see if it works okay and then space there in forward slash and then four then equals then C and then colon okay and also watch the colons here because sometimes you do some of these Co these ones here and i' and I make a mistake my keyboard is not very responsive uh so space there and I'm going to put another forward slash in there then we need Max size now once we got the max size in and equals we can now put um the size that we want to allocate okay to our maximum Shadow uh storage okay so what we could do here if I wanted to I could actually put in uh say five if I wanted to five gigabytes or I could make it free or whatever so I'm just going to put in a smaller figure a bigger figure of 3 gab now if you want to make it smaller if it's obviously uh 30 gbt or something you can actually reduce it down to 10 or something like whatever you want okay so and then we need to put uh GB and then we're going to push enter okay now as you can see it's done its thing we're going to have a little look here now so it says successfully resized the shadow copy storage so what you want to do now is if you want to have a little look you can actually go back uh let me just R and type that I might be able to just do this there we go so you need to type this in again and you can actually have a look and see what's happened okay so as you can see it's now changed it's now allocating three gigabyt of that okay so I hope this has been some use my name is Brian from b.co you can find out more information on my uh Forum there I've got a load of other in uh good information on other sorts of stuff like uh virus removal mare removal uh all these sorts of uh tutorial whe s handwritten on there so you can actually go over there and uh catch up with what's been happening okay so hope you enjoyed these videos thanks again for watching guys thanks for your support keep hitting that subscribe button and rting for all my videos thanks again bye for nowin this video I'll going be showing you how to reclaim back some of your hard drive space by resizing the system volume information folder on a Windows 7 operating system now this works in both ways you can either reclaim back some of the space or you can make it bigger so if you've not got enough space in your system Vol uh system volume folder you can actually make it bigger or take it away so let's have a little look what we need to do we need to go to the Run box here and put CMD and then we need to right click and then run as administrator here okay click yes here now we got our Command Prompt Box open okay so what I want to do here is put VSS admin okay I'll do it nice and slow so you can see what I'm doing and then put in their list and I'll need to put in Shadow storage okay now this gives us all the information that we want to know about our system volume information folder okay so as you can see we've got the use Shadow uh storage space is 26 16 mbes well a little bit bigger than that but as you can see it there allocated Shadow uh storage is at 498 and we've also got uh maximum Shadow storage okay so we got 1.49 uh 46 GB so why I can do here now say for instance what I've had reports on is some people are saying that they've got 20 30 gigs of this here or 40 gigs now if you've got a a laptop that's only got a small uh small amount of space and you want to claim some of that back you can actually reduce it by resizing in this okay but also it works the other way around if you've not got enough space here and you want to allocate a bit more space because you like to have a lot of restore points then you can do that also so what we need to do is type vsss and uh admin like so and then resize like that and then Shadow storage yeah and space then for slash then on just make sure you get the spaces in there yeah cuz a lot of people sometimes miss the spaces and it goes wrong uh so C colon I'm going to do this all lowercase uh and see if it works okay and then space there in forward slash and then four then equals then C and then colon okay and also watch the colons here because sometimes you do some of these Co these ones here and i' and I make a mistake my keyboard is not very responsive uh so space there and I'm going to put another forward slash in there then we need Max size now once we got the max size in and equals we can now put um the size that we want to allocate okay to our maximum Shadow uh storage okay so what we could do here if I wanted to I could actually put in uh say five if I wanted to five gigabytes or I could make it free or whatever so I'm just going to put in a smaller figure a bigger figure of 3 gab now if you want to make it smaller if it's obviously uh 30 gbt or something you can actually reduce it down to 10 or something like whatever you want okay so and then we need to put uh GB and then we're going to push enter okay now as you can see it's done its thing we're going to have a little look here now so it says successfully resized the shadow copy storage so what you want to do now is if you want to have a little look you can actually go back uh let me just R and type that I might be able to just do this there we go so you need to type this in again and you can actually have a look and see what's happened okay so as you can see it's now changed it's now allocating three gigabyt of that okay so I hope this has been some use my name is Brian from b.co you can find out more information on my uh Forum there I've got a load of other in uh good information on other sorts of stuff like uh virus removal mare removal uh all these sorts of uh tutorial whe s handwritten on there so you can actually go over there and uh catch up with what's been happening okay so hope you enjoyed these videos thanks again for watching guys thanks for your support keep hitting that subscribe button and rting for all my videos thanks again bye for now\n"