Lost over 200GB to Defraggler!

When I started the defragmentation process, I had just cleared space to about 260GB of free space. Now, I have only have 80GB of free space left and since it's still defragging, the space is constantly going down. I've read on a few other topics that you have to disable VSS before the process but since I've already started - it's about to finish now, after two days! - what am I supposed to do after it finished in order to reclaim all that space? That's almost 20% of my hard drive space, and not just 13 to 20GB, like others have lost, which would be far more palatable.

Usually a reboot will reclaim the space.

Run the command "vssadmin delete shadows /for=x:". It will delete the space stolen by VSS, where x: is replaced by drive spec that Defraggler/VSS stole disk space from. The command prompt must be "run as administrator".

THANK YOU!

Using a non-English language for my computer, I had enormous trouble trying to follow some of the FAQ instructions since I couldn't find the correct places to enter changes, etc, but your admin command prompt solution gave me back 110 gig of wasted space.

I wanted to "Like" your post but apparently I've "used up" all my likes for the day despite never being here before, so have some text likes instead :)

Run the command "vssadmin delete shadows /for=x:". It will delete the space stolen by VSS, where x: is replaced by drive spec that Defraggler/VSS stole disk space from. The command prompt must be "run as administrator".

I'm so glad I found this post! You the man lwesker!

@ All:

- Defraggler has an option to disable the VSS Service while Defraggler is busy. VSS is somehow triggered by running Defraggler and then creates one extra System Restore Point.

- Use Ccleaner to delete one or more System Restore Points.

@the developers of Defraggler: I think Defraggler should ALWAYS (temporarily) disable the VSS Service when the program is busy.

Another round of thanks goes to lwesker. I just got back about 70gb of free space back that I lost after a two-day defrag. I can't remember if I foolishly turned off the option to disable the VSS service or not. If it's not already on by default, it definitely should be.

two days?

Iirc, Vss is not system restore it's file history. Turning it off stops vss (especially Vista's) from creating a new file everytime defragging moves a bit (1/8 of a byte) from one spot to another. In vista and maybe 7 this resulted in hundreds of thousands of new bytes created of the drive causing (as well as lost space) major new fragmentation.

As I've no idea what os the original poster is running, I'll say something, quickly about restore points. Restore points are removed by defragmenting, not created. They are removed only if space is needed by the drive; for example, defragmenting with too little freespace.