HD space vanishing while copying files to external HD (WIN 8.1)

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VinGas

Commendable
Jul 18, 2016
3
0
1,510
Hi everyone, I'm trying to figure out what is happening to my laptop and I think my knowledge alone won't cut it so here I am asking for wisdom..
The issue itself is fairly simple:
I copied a bunch of files (approx. 300Gb total), from my media server to an external HD connectred to my laptop. Once the transfer was done, I realised I had no space left on my C drive!
The files copied just fine, I can see them on my external HD, but somehow, the copying must have left something on my C drive, because I lost roughly 100Gb on it.
I tried everything I could think of, rebooting, virus and malware scans, clear temp folders (win\temp and %user%temp), run ccleaner, nothing seems to answer my question.. What ate my C drive space and how do I get it back?

Thank you all for your help

Specs:
Win 8.1 (all updates)
hp pavilion laptop 15p-138nl
WD extrnal HD
Plex media server (connected to home group)
 
Solution
Boogieman_WD
Hey thre, VinGas.

It's a bit weird that it would take up so much of your space. I guess you haven't installed or downloaded anything you might have forgotten about? You've tried quite a lot of things so at least you've ruled out malware and viruses. I'd recommend that you go through the suggestions from this article to see if you'd be able to clean up the drive or at least find out what might be filling up your free space: http://www.howtogeek.com/125923/7-ways-to-free-up-hard-disk-space-on-windows/.

Hope that helps. Please let me know how it goes.
Boogieman_WD
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Boogieman_WD

Boogieman_WD

Judicious
Jul 31, 2014
6,050
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Hey thre, VinGas.

It's a bit weird that it would take up so much of your space. I guess you haven't installed or downloaded anything you might have forgotten about? You've tried quite a lot of things so at least you've ruled out malware and viruses. I'd recommend that you go through the suggestions from this article to see if you'd be able to clean up the drive or at least find out what might be filling up your free space: http://www.howtogeek.com/125923/7-ways-to-free-up-hard-disk-space-on-windows/.

Hope that helps. Please let me know how it goes.
Boogieman_WD
 
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Solution
V

VinGas

Commendable
Jul 18, 2016
3
0
1,510
Hi Boogieman_wd,
thanks for the reply.
After trying even more options to fix it, I finally figured out what happened. No, not correct, I found the missing space, still not sure what happened though.

Using WinDirStat I managed to find 350Gb of .tmp files inside the IE cache (version 11, which I don't use), my best guess is that the cache was used to store the files copied from my media server while waiting to push the data onto my USB HD. After setting a few security priviledges I was able to delete the files and get my space back.

The thing that I can't get my head around, is the fact that neither disk cleanup or IE cache clearing feature, managed to even see those files, let alone removing them. Plus the fact that once the copying was done, the .tmp files were not removed automatically as one would expect.

Anyway, I guess getting the space back is better than nothing.
PROBLEM SOLVED.
 
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Boogieman_WD

Boogieman_WD

Judicious
Jul 31, 2014
6,050
2
35,960
Well, your guess is as good as mine. It really sounds plausible.

Is IE set as your default browser? It would be nice if we can figure this out so that it could be prevented in future cases like this one, although the best way to know what really happened is perhaps to get in touch with Microsoft's customer support for more info on the subject.

Anyway, the important thing for now is that you've solved the problem. Good job!
 
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V

VinGas

Commendable
Jul 18, 2016
3
0
1,510


Sorry for the delay, been having problems with my connection.
Nope, firefox is my default browser, never use ie unless I need to do a check on a website to see how it behaves on ie.
 
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