On my new Flying PC I have the OS and a couple other things on C Drive which is a 60GB ssd. I know that there should be about 35-40GB of free space on that drive, but Properties indicates there is less than 6GBs of free space. I can not find out what is taking up all that space???In Windows 7 there are numerous files on C drive that are *access denied * files with a little padlock on them--- even though I am the *Owner/Administrater* and I have checked *Show Hidden Files and Folders*. I also have the User Accounts turned off.Long story short-- I changed the *Permissions* settings on all of those files as well as some of the *Sharing* definitions by going to Properties-Security-Advanced, etc, etc. After doing all that I still can't see what is taking up 50GB of that drive when it should be only about 18-20GB.!!!Then I thought oh well, I'll do a *System Restore* and put everything back the way it was. Oh boy!! I got a message that a system restore can not be done due to a *Catastrophic failure(0x800FFF)* I googled the error message # and found a suggested fix through a command prompt entry(forgot what it was (sfc+something) after a disc cleanup followed by a Disc Check . No errors were discovered. It then said boot up in safe mode and run a system restore. Well, safe mode is not a choice when I press F8 on startup. There are four coded options that are unintelligible to me so the problem is with the basic OS I guess--- and re-installing W7 is the last resort apparently?? That's about a 3 day job to get the sim and everything back the way it was.The sim, and everything I use in connection with it, seems to work okay. I wonder if just trucking along with it as is would be a bad idea.??Any suggestions?Bruce

BruceAn SSD will function pefectly well up to around the 90/95% full mark as it only needs a round 5-10% space for normal disk functions a conventional HDD (not for data) will usually start to slow down around the 60 - 70% full mark and may well misbehave and be unresponsive at the 90+% level.If it were me, I would do a clean install of the OS, even if sfc /scannow showed no problems if you pulled up its log file it would tell you what it couldn't fix.You shouild be able to boot in safe mode - set it via msconfig - "WIndows key + R - type in msconfig choose safe boot option. You could also try the setting in the BIOS of "fail safe" or similar and make sure that your keyboard can be detected during boot up - a setting something like "USB Legacy Mode"There is alittle app called "take ownership" (google Vista take ownership) which was made for Vista but it works well in Win 7 and if you right click on a drive/folder/file there will be a "take ownership" option which gives the correct permissions.The padlock on a file usually indicates that it is not shared with anyone but you.The access denied comes up because you are showing hidden system files and they are the legacy comptability options for previous versions of windows - tick hide system files and they will disappear.Bite the bullet.PeterH

Hi Peter!Hah! I guess the *bite the bullet* is what I'll have to do-- and re-install W7. Thanks so much for the response! I'll get the *take ownership* app!!Bruce

Did you empty the Windows recycle bin? The space taken up by a deleted file is not returned to Windows until the bin is emptied.Video editing, which I know you do a fair bit if, could also be leaving some large buffer files on the drive.

Bob ---Well, after about 15 hours of searching it seems there might not be problem. I opened system restore about 3 hours ago and a new restore point had been auto created, about an hour before. I clicked on restore and it worked normally--- did not get the error message. FSX seems to work properly and nothing else seems amiss. I also did a sfc/scannow in cmd prompt and the results were *no problems found*. I use CCleaner several times a day as well. I keep the system cleaned up and defragged at least bi weekly. Don't know what caused that. I found a thread that said updating Windows or MSE could cause that error message and I had done just that in the same time frame that it first appeared --- so who knows??Thanks for the reply!Bruce