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PLEASE HELP - but this is NOT A DUPLICATE question - please don't mark it as such before reading it. Several people marked last posting that way - clearly didn't read it. Yes, I have read through these forums for a few hours to no avail.

I have a Win7 laptop with a 750Gig C: drive. It came partitioned with 714Gig usable from manufacturer. I installed programs, music files, etc up to 285 gigs. As of a few weeks ago it showed 285 Gigs. Two weeks of house guests later and it shows HD is full. I deleted some files but it still shows 652 Gigs on this drive while there are only 285 Gigs on drive. Relevant details:

  1. I am Administrator on laptop and have fair knowledge of what I am doing.
  2. I did not restore from backup, restore from mirror, upgrade HD's or anything else that would have touched the partition structure. Just daily use as imaging machine and web.
  3. I have checked partitions under disk administrator - no change, still partitioned with 714Gigs usable.
  4. Have looked through computer C drive by hand showing Hidden files and folders - no change.
  5. I have used JDisk Report to double check - it shows I have only 285 Gigs on C drive.
  6. I triple checked with TreeSize run as Administrator and it also shows 285 Gigs on C drive - yet Windows 7 still shows almost full.
  7. I used Windows 7 Utilities to Check for Disk Errors, and Defragged the drive. No errors shown and no change after Defrag.

I am stumped, and since this is a laptop from the factory, I really don't want to have to Format my HD.

PLEASE HELP!!

Chris Kelly
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1 Answers1

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There are few common culprits which you should check:

  • Recycle Bin: check it if is too big, and clean it up first: Right Click - > Empty Recycle Bin.

  • System restore points. Often, you can reclaim significant space by removing restore points: Start -> Control Panel -> System -> System Protection -> Configure -> Delete.

You can also delete all restore points from command line:

vssadmin delete shadows /for=c: /all

Note that unlike any other files, space taken by restore points cannot be counted or revealed by normal tools, because it is hidden in C:\System Volume Information directory, which you do not have permission to look inside, even if you have full administrator rights.

  • Page file at C:\pagefile.sys. Page file can grow to be rather large if you run something that needs a lot of memory. Check if this hidden file is bigger than few gigabytes.

  • Temporary files. You can amass quite significant space of temporary files in C:\Windows\TEMP and/or C:\Users\user\local settings\temp. Make sure that these directories do not have large amount of files.

  • Software updates downloaded at C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution\Download. As you run Windows updates, you can accumulate a lot of junk in this directory - you can safely remove its contents (but not directory itself).

I have surely forgotten about few other things, but these I would look up first.

mvp
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