Remove System Volume information folder from external drive

Solution 1:

In my experience the answer to limiting the space used by System Volume Info on an external drive is NOT to delete it, as it returns again. Here's what worked for me (Windows 10 X64).

1. Tell Windows not to index that drive.

   (a) In My Computer (or This PC) right-click the external drive, on General tab clear the "Allow files to have contents indexed" checkbox.

   (b) Search Windows for "Indexing Options" & run. Click Modify and clear the checkbox next to your external drive. (Say yes to "folders and sub-folders as well" & click Apply, then be patient.)

2. Tell Windows not to create restore points on that drive.Search Windows for "restore point" & run. Click on Create a Restore Point. Click the external drive, then the Configure button, and select Disable System Protection.

3. Limit Windows' "Shadow Copy" feature on the external drive [without disabling the service, which would affect all drives]. Open an elevated command prompt.

   To list the space currently used by shadow copies: vssadmin list shadowstorage

   To limit the space used by shadow copies on Drive F to 1gb: vssadmin resize shadowstorage /on=F: /For=F: /Maxsize=1GB

   To validate changes: vssadmin list shadowstorage

Note: the source of the vssadmin commands: http://lifeofageekadmin.com/disappearing-space-on-windows-2008-r2-caused-by-system-volume-information/

Solution 2:

As I did not receive any other answers to my question and it is still open - I decided to provide my own answer.

Quick notice: it's not possible to remove System Volume Information folder and its contents even with third-party solutions without taking an ownership of the folder.

Here is the approach what does not involve installing any third party solution. The original solution can be found here.

Here is the quick re-cap of the mentioned above solution:

1. You need to TakeOwnership over the System Volume information folder. For doing so, you need to create TakeOwnership.reg file which can also be downloaded here. This is what goes inside the TakeOwnership.reg file:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shell\runas]
@="Take Ownership"
"NoWorkingDirectory"=""

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shell\runas\command]
@="cmd.exe /c takeown /f \"%1\" && icacls \"%1\" /grant administrators:F"
"IsolatedCommand"="cmd.exe /c takeown /f \"%1\" && icacls \"%1\" /grant administrators:F"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell\runas]
@="Take Ownership"
"NoWorkingDirectory"=""

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell\runas\command]
@="cmd.exe /c takeown /f \"%1\" /r /d y && icacls \"%1\" /grant administrators:F /t"
"IsolatedCommand"="cmd.exe /c takeown /f \"%1\" /r /d y && icacls \"%1\" /grant administrators:F /t"

2. For the created TakeOwneship.reg file to take effect you need to run it, meaning just double-click on the newly created file.

3. After Taking ownership (running the .reg file) you need to run following commands in command prompt (opened with Administrator privileges):

4. Attrib -s -h -r "{drive}:\System Volume information" /S /D

5. RD "{drive}:\System Volume information" /S

Where {drive} is the letter what your external drive has.

That all the steps what I have taken in order to be able to delete the System Volume Information folder from the external HDD. This worked fine for my machine Win 10 Pro x64 and I've got my extra 124GB.

@Scott in his comments points out for a missing explanation for a more precise description of what exactly these commands do as well as proving why this method exactly works and other methods do not work.

• Regarding to the meaning of the commands - I am not aware exactly what they do, I can only refer "primitively" that these shell commands help to take "full ownership" of this particular folder (more precise/technical description is welcome).

• This method "works" better than others, because I was not able to find any other method what actually "work". And only following precisely these steps helped me to delete the folder in order to free up space on my external HDD.

Hope this will help others who have similar issue.