Harddrive says Completely Full. It's Not.

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Strype

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Sep 8, 2014
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I have a Lenovo Y570 Thinkpad with a 750GB Hard Drive. It is stating that I only have 1 GB of free space, when there is only about 60 GB worth of software installed. I am constantly receiving "Low Disk Space" messages, when I should have TONS of free space left. I have done hours upon hours of research trying to figure out what is causing this problem, and cannot seem to find the solution anywhere.

Many people who have encountered similar problems have fixed it by disabling Windows Restore and deleting the restore points, etc. This is not the problem for me. I have it entirely disabled and have made sure there are no restore points sitting around. In fact, absolutely NONE of the solutions that have worked for other people have worked for me.

I am completely out of ideas. Can somebody with advanced knowledge PLEASE help me? I have no idea what to do anymore and my computer is basically useless in this state.

Please, please help me.


Btw: I have run TreeSize, Spacesniffer AND WinDirStat (all in Administrator mode) and none of the 3 programs have been able to identify what is taking up the space. It just shows up as a gigantic chunk of "Unknown" space.


*Edit: See below for a screenshot of what I see when I run WinDirStat/TreeSize/Spacesniffer. The huge yellow block is the "Unknown" space that my computer is entirely unable to delete, remove, or even identify.
 
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terroralpha

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Jun 23, 2009
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could be a few things,

some computer viruses are built just to annoy people. one that comes to mind is an older one called "updownA." it spams garbage files to slow down your PC and fill up the drive.

the other possibility is that something on your machine is spamming log files.

unfortunately without looking at the machine, it will be EXTREMELY hard for anyone to pin point the reason.
 
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Strype

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Sep 8, 2014
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I have run Symantec, Avast, Windows Defender, Malwarebytes, etc.. Nothing is coming up as dirty and/or malicious. I would be willing to post my specs, or some sort of log file, if somebody needs that to help me determine the problem. I am aware that it would be hard to troubleshoot with such little information, which is why I started the thread. If anybody needs further information, just let me know what you need and I would happy to provide it. I have been working with computers for a long time, and this is the first time I've really encountered a problem that I haven't been able to fix on my own. If anybody has any ideas or needs to me to submit something to provide further assistance, please feel free to let me know and I will get it up as soon as possible. Thanks in advance.
 
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Strype

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Sep 8, 2014
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Anybody have any other suggestions? Below is a screenshot of WinDirStat (in administrator mode). The massive Yellow chunk is the "Unknown" space that I am completely unable to delete, remove or even identify. The same results occur when running TreeSize and Spacesniffer as well.

Wind_Dir_Stat.png


If anybody has any idea what might be causing this, any help would be greatly appreciated. I am usually very good at troubleshooting and solving PC problems on my own. This is the first time I haven't been able to figure out the problem, and had to resort to using tech forums to ask for a possible solution. Please, please help me if you think you may know what could cause such an issue. Thanks in advance!

 
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terroralpha

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Jun 23, 2009
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OH RIGHT!!! i've seen this at work before. this is a windows glitch. you need to run a check disk. in my computer, right click on the C drive, go to properties > tools tab > check now > check off both boxes you see there and click start. your computer will ask to restart. let it restart and do the scan. and that should fix it.
 
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Strype

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Sep 8, 2014
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I have already ran a disk check. Several times, to no avail. Unforuntely (or, fortunately), it says the hard disk is fine and doesn't report any errors whatsoever.
 
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Techpumpkin_WD

Techpumpkin_WD

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Aug 4, 2014
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Hello there,
A screenshot of disc management would be useful. Also did you run WinDirStat as Administrator? If you didn't run as Administrator, then any files that WinDirStat is denied access to will not have their sizes counted. This results in a much larger "Unknown" value.
 
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