Windows shows wrong HDD free space

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Aitbek Myrzakhmet

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Jan 20, 2015
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Hi there.
In 'my computer' folder it shows that DIsk C: has 9 GB of free space out of 120 GB. Then I opened C: and selected all and went to properties, so that is shows what is the size of all the files in C:. I got hidden folders shown. So it showed that It is only 67 GB ( Compared to that 111 GB shown in main folder) . Why is that hapening? Please, help.
 
Solution
A
Try something like CCleaner or disk cleanup "windows preinstall" and see if you can free up some space. If you're using a SSD, 9 free GB would be the least free space that I would consider running with. At that lvl everything would run a little slower and your SSD may fail a little earlier but it wouldn't be a major issue, just not recommended.
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A

APassingMe

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Aug 25, 2014
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It's probably system restore files, they don't normally show up when you look for them. [strike]You can verify if it is by checking the included disk cleanup application in windows[/strike], if it is system restore files you should adjust the amount that they are allowed to use for backups and potentially delete some of the older backups.

Update:
Sorry for the confusion, you can delete system restore files from an linked application from within disk cleanup but it does not show you used space for restore files. You will have to check system properties/system protection/configure to confirm space used, system properties is reached through advanced system settings in the properties page for "My Computer/Computer".
 
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boosted1g

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Jun 12, 2013
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There is system restore files, your prefetch file, your paging file and your system hibernation (if laptop) that all take up room on the hard drive. None of them are necessary for an SSD drive.

System Restore - backup of system registry. This can be usefull but a full backup to a different drive is much better
Prefetch - index of files for faster searches
Paging File - default is the size of system memory. It allows the hard drive to be used as slower extra ram. If you have 8gb of ram then you can set this to something like 200-500mb
Hibernation - allows computer state to be saved to hard drive before powering off. This was great for slow HDD, but it is actually faster to do a full startup with an SSD then restore from Hibernation.
 
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Aitbek Myrzakhmet

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Jan 20, 2015
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I did what you suggested and It turns out to be 5% ( ~6 GB ) so it's not making any difference. So, in case it cannot be fixed, could you tell whether these "low free space" ( 9 GB) affects the performance of the PC?
 
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APassingMe

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Aug 25, 2014
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Try something like CCleaner or disk cleanup "windows preinstall" and see if you can free up some space. If you're using a SSD, 9 free GB would be the least free space that I would consider running with. At that lvl everything would run a little slower and your SSD may fail a little earlier but it wouldn't be a major issue, just not recommended.
 
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Solution
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link76

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Feb 4, 2015
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I had the same problem:
- windows 8.1
- Hidden Files Visible
- system & protected files visible
- Total C size 120GB
- Free Space detected by windows: only 4 GB
- selecting all files and directories -> Right click -> properties -> just 50 GB occupied and not the whole damn disk.
So here is the solution that worked for me:
i installed WinDirStat, a free tool that shows folders size and with great surprise i discovered that my "C:\windows" dir size wasn't 15GB as shown on windows but 75GB...so i opened Windows folder in WinDirStat and discovered that the "C:\windows\TEMP" directory was about 60GB...but if i right click on that dir from windows, the properties shows ZERO BYTE even if hidden files and protected file are set to be visible and even if entering that folder i see the whole content....
THIS IS A VERY STRAGE MISTERY i cannot understand. I checked on Windows 7 and there i can see the real Temp Size. So seems like the strange behaviour shows himself only on win 8.1.

SO, FINALLY i solved ERASING ALL the Folders and Files contained in the damn TEMP folder
 
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yonef

yonef

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Jan 22, 2008
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Explain this :
7QIJF4l.jpg
 
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A

AginaharijaR

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Nov 4, 2015
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I had a similar problem.

I've tried many programs to check HDD used space (eg. Sequoia view or SpaceSniffer) and they showed that 160GB is occupied, but on my 500 GB disk there was only 40gigs left! That was serious!

I've run SpaceSniffer with Administrator priviliges and... more than 200GB was used by MS SQL Server that SpaceSniffer normally cannot access. And some others gigs were used by another programs. So maybe it is the same issue for all of you.

Regards,
AginaharijaR
 
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