Again, if you will look in My Computer, you will see the total size of your
drive listed. The visible partiton(s), anyway. Make sure you change the View
setting to Detailed if it isn't already that way.

Let's go back to square one. How did the "backup" get created? Was it some
part of the "repair" process? Because the way you describe it that seems to
be the case. Or did you deliberately back up the system before proceeding to
"repair".

I don't really know what an LGIA installation CD does to "repair" a system.
With a normal Windows 98 installation CD, the procedure is called an
"overinstall", where you run Setup and it reinstalls Windows without first
reformatting. Problem is, the system you have before repairing, with all its
Updates and Service Packs, has numerous system files that are actually newer
than the ones Setup wants to install. Setup isn't smart enough to decide
what to leave well enough alone, so MS includes a procedure where system
files that are to be overwritten with older versions get backed up, and
replaces all or most of them entirely. Unfortunately, this well-intended
backup feature is in practice spotty at best, with most of the system files
simply getting overwritten with no backup. Those files that are backed up
before being overwritten can be viewed by running Version Conflict Manager
(run VCM from the StartRun box.)

After such a "repair" installation, your system tends to become unstable,
sometimes even moreso than it was before the "repair". Updates that you had
previously installed are often broken by partial file replacement, but
Windows Updates sees them as installed and doesn't prompt you to reinstall
them. You end up with several Updates being broken and/or a situation known
as DLL Hell -- mismatched DLL files -- and no way to accurately fix the
situation. This is why I recommend this procedure only if needed in order to
get back into Windows long enough to retrieve your personal files before
reformatting and starting over entirely. Again, I don't know what the LGIA
procedure does, but if it's anything like an overinstall, I beg you to
consider backing up your personal files to CD or online storage or anywhere
else but the HD itself, and then reformatting and starting over from
scratch.

Sorry for the long exposition, but I thought you'd like to know. Still,
there's no way that automatic system file backups during Setup caused you to
lose 4GB of space. VCM backups typically only involve a few dozen megabytes,
perhaps a hundred or two at the most. I also don't know if the LGIA "repair"
procedure even does anything the same as a normal Win98 overinstall. And
even if it backed up the entire Windows system, excluding 3rd-party
applications and personal files, that still wouldn't come close to 4GB. Then
again, if it's some kind of total backup, or one that backs up 3rd-party
applications along with Windows files, then we might be in the right
ballpark. Knowing the total size of your C:\ drive would help a lot in
understanding what numbers might be involved and assist us in guessing what
might actually have been backed up. So I have to wonder what really happened
to the missing free space. Did you manually perform a backup before running
the repair? If not, have you been able to locate what you think are backups?

In the end, until you (and we) know just what has been backed up, there's no
way to reasonably comment on what might or might not be necessary to keep.
My own opinion is that the only files that really need to be backed up are
those few that are automatically backed up on a regular basis by Windows
(Registry backups, primarily) and perhaps by other applications. However,
any decent application (and Windows itself, if properly configured)
shouldn't be accumulating backups ad infinitum. Old, and thus obsolete,
backups should be cycled out and deleted just as automatically as they are
created.

So, after reading this long, long reply, perhaps you have a better insight
as to where to begin to look for lost space. Or do you perhaps already know
where at least some backups are stored, what they back up, etc., and can
provide more detail as to what is included? Why, for instance, you think AOL
backups are involved? If it's a set of backups created by the LGIA repair
procedure, can you actually see what they are in Windows Explorer, or are
they packed into some kind of megafile(s)?

(Sorry if I got too repetetive. It's almost dawn here, but I haven't been
able to sleep. Not the greatest condition in which to write technical
advice, but I thought I might as well try.)

--

Gary S. Terhune
MS-MVP Shell/User

"Kumachan" u26130@uwe wrote in message news:65c6696926c40@uwe...
Gary S. Terhune wrote:
Wait a minute! You mention two programs below. But *both* of those
programs
are more interested in *Free* space than anything else. Please... Are you
*certain* that the total size of your C:\ drive, both Used and Free space
is
only 3.02GB? Or is that only the Free space?

I'm sorry! It only gauges free space, so that's what I have with
everything
installed. If possible, I'd like to keep the settings I have, and get rid
of
the old junk that's backed up and no longer needed. Thanks for the help
thus
far, and for putting up with what seems to be my rampant ignorance
tonight!