Travel Technology - Is it possible to [install] the Vista OS twice into a laptop?

I finally took the plunge and upgraded my HP laptop with Vista (from XP) using the upgrade discs it came with.

It went smoothly.......except... that at one step where I needed to "press any key" to continue I did so a second time in error after the installation was nearly complete when the computer rebooted itself again during the process. It created a situation where it went back to the beginning of the installation and repeated nearly all the steps. It went fine after that.

I surprised at how much GB the system occupies ( 35GB out of 70 GB hard drive!) And it was a "clean" install with no personal files carried over.

So it made me wonder if I installed the system twice?

I have not removed any of the bloatware yet that was installed...but still.

The install of Vista may be bloated, but it consumes nowhere near the amount of space you're seeing consumed. Did you wipe out your system completely or just run the upgrade program? If the latter then all your personal data and applications are still there and that is what is taking up the space.

Good call..... I deleted (what I could) of the windows.old file and that restored 10GB of hard drive. Some files I couldn't delete because it required the "adminstrator"....of which there is none.

Still 25GB consumed somewhere but I will keep looking.

Have you looked in the Document and Settings folder? In Vista there is a Users folder that has the same thing.

The easiest way to find where the space is being consumed is to just go through all the folders at the root of the drive, right-click on them and choose properties. It'll scan the folder and tell you how much is in use in that folder and all the subfolders. You should figure it out pretty quickly that way.

Good call..... I deleted (what I could) of the windows.old file and that restored 10GB of hard drive. Some files I couldn't delete because it required the "adminstrator"....of which there is none.Actually, you're the administrator. If you're using a program to delete the files (even Windows Explorer), right-click on the icon and choose "run as administrator."

Wirelessly posted (Blackberry8700c: BlackBerry9000/4.6.0.190 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/120)

Try Windirstat for an easier way of seeing file use by directory to figure out where the files are hiding!
http://windirstat.info/

Wirelessly posted (Blackberry8700c: BlackBerry9000/4.6.0.190 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/120)

Try Windirstat for an easier way of seeing file use by directory to figure out where the files are hiding!
http://windirstat.info/

Thanks for the link.

Anyways for the OP, can't you do a clean install of Vista (not upgrade from XP)

It would be better if your hard drive has 2 partitions so you can just like put your documents on the other drive while you format the C drive. That way you will have no problem backing up your files. Vista on clean install by itself occupies about 5GB of space.

While I had my computer working fine on Vista I was still not happy with the GB space it was taking up over 1/2 of my available 75 GB) even after deleting the old windows file. ..... this morning I decided to "reinstall" Vista and try again. Not only did it eat up another 5GB of hard drive, but when I deleted the "old" microsoft files this time..... I ended up losing all the aero capabilities . It just doesn't exist anymore in the options. I also lost some of my screen resolution....my guess is I deleted some critical XP files that needed to stay.

In lieu of calling HP for help....I took the laptop and the upgrade discs into our local computer repair shop....I'm hoping they can undo my errors.

Moral.... never wake up and start fiddling with your computer when you really don't know what you are doing....