Where is that other 100gb?

[OddsAgainst]

I have been trying to clean out extra content from my 500gb HDD because I was down to 50gb left. After finding little to delete, I starting measuring the file sizes to find out where the space on my hard drive was going. Nothing seemed to add up. I measured all the contents inside my hard drive, and I only had about 330gb used. Why is Windows saying that my drive is almost full when it seems to me that I still have a decent amount of space left?

 

[deluxe5]

I have been trying to clean out extra content from my 500gb HDD because I was down to 50gb left. After finding little to delete, I starting measuring the file sizes to find out where the space on my hard drive was going. Nothing seemed to add up. I measured all the contents inside my hard drive, and I only had about 330gb used. Why is Windows saying that my drive is almost empty when it seems to me that I still have a decent amount of space left?

A lot of manufactures will put a 'recovery partition' on your computer at the factory that contains the bare bones file system required to restore your computer back to it's factory settings. I'd all but bet that's the case.

 

[OddsAgainst]

A lot of manufactures will put a 'recovery partition' on your computer at the factory that contains the bare bones file system required to restore your computer back to it's factory settings. I'd all but bet that's the case.

Is there any way I could get rid of this, or is it safer to just leave it?

 

[deluxe5]

You'll want to leave it.

 

[sminlal]

Recovery partitions are usually a lot smaller than 50GB. You can use Disk Management (Start -> right-click "Computer" and select "Manage" -> click "Disk Management" in the left pane) to verify what partitions are on your drive - scroll down to the bottom of the middle pane to see a map of partitions.

If there's still unaccounted space, then the most likely culprits are the recycle bin (be sure to check the recycle bin for every user account) and restore points. To check restore points, do this:

- Start -> right-click "Computer" -> choose "Properties"
- Click the "System protection" link in the left pane
- Under "Protection Settings", click the drive in question to highlight it and then click "Configure..."

The resulting dialogue box will show how much space is used for restore points and let you adjust the maximum allocation for them using a slider.

 

[deluxe5]

He was down to almost 50GB before he started freeing up space. He said he had 330GB available after freeing up some space. Assuming that this is the only drive in his PC, with an operating system, programs and a recovery partition that sounds about right to me.

 

[OddsAgainst]

Recovery partitions are usually a lot smaller than 50GB. You can use Disk Management (Start -> right-click "Computer" and select "Manage" -> click "Disk Management" in the left pane) to verify what partitions are on your drive - scroll down to the bottom of the middle pane to see a map of partitions.

If there's still unaccounted space, then the most likely culprits are the recycle bin (be sure to check the recycle bin for every user account) and restore points. To check restore points, do this:

- Start -> right-click "Computer" -> choose "Properties"
- Click the "System protection" link in the left pane
- Under "Protection Settings", click the drive in question to highlight it and then click "Configure..."

The resulting dialogue box will show how much space is used for restore points and let you adjust the maximum allocation for them using a slider.

I am actually down to 304gb inside the C Drive, yet windows still says I only have 75.6gb left. I emptied the recycle bin, but that only took away those 30gb. My recovery partition is only about 10gb and I only have a single partition along with the Windows files (System Reserved).
What I am doing to check the space is I am highlighting all the items inside the drive and right click Properties. Does my drive manufacture matter? If so, I have a Western Digital 500gb (really 465gb) Bare Hard Drive.

He was down to almost 50GB before he started freeing up space. He said he had 330GB available after freeing up some space. Assuming that this is the only drive in his PC, with an operating system, programs and a recovery partition that sounds about right to me.

Could you explain how this makes sense?

 

[deluxe5]

Why is Windows saying that my drive is almost empty when it seems to me that I still have a decent amount of space left?[

This reads a little odd. From the other posts you made here it seems that your saying that Windows is showing that your drive is almost FULL not empty. Right?

 

[OddsAgainst]

This reads a little odd. From the other posts you made here it seems that your saying that Windows is showing that your drive is almost FULL not empty. Right?

Sorry for the typo.

 

[sminlal]

I emptied the recycle bin, but that only took away those 30gb.

Did you check to see how much space is being used by Restore Points as I described? That's the most likely culprit.

 

[WyomingKnott]

While almost everything has already been said, you might try the free tool "windirstat". If you turn on the option to show Hidden space, you get a remarkably good image of where the space went.
Plus the usual argument that disks are sold in GB (10^9), but we see size in GiB (2^30). The ratio is about 1.074 to 1.

 

[OddsAgainst]

I tried windirstat, and it turns out I had about 70gb extra in my Windows folder (totaling 80gb). Is it normal to have that much?

Edit: After looking some more, a bulk of the Windows folder is in the Temp folder. Now I may not be any expert on computers, but I don't think I need things that are Temporary. Should I go about trying to clean this folder out, or is it still safer to leave it?

 

[OddsAgainst]

+1 to sminlal

I would turn off system restore check your space and restart system restore.
control panel/ system / system restore

Like I said before, the System Restore is only about 10gb. The hidden files that are taking so much space are in C:\Windows\Temp. It didn't show up when I checked the contents of the C: Drive for whatever reason. I just want to know if I can delete the 80gb in the Temp folder.

 

[OddsAgainst]

Here is an image of WinDirStat. Pay attention to the Unknown folder (Highlighted).

There is no way to delete it, but it is hogging 71gb.

 

[sminlal]

Like I said before, the System Restore is only about 10gb.

You said that your "recovery partition" is only 10GB. You need to understand that a "recovery partition" and "Restore Points" are two totally separate things. "Restore Points" are space used INSIDE your OS partition that contains old versions of changed files so that you can "roll back" changes to a given point in time.

Again, the way you check how much space is available for Restore Points is to do this:

- Start -> right-click "Computer" -> choose "Properties"
- Click the "System protection" link in the left pane
- Under "Protection Settings", click the drive in question to highlight it and then click "Configure..."

Have you actually followed these steps?

 

[OddsAgainst]

You said that your "recovery partition" is only 10GB. You need to understand that a "recovery partition" and "Restore Points" are two totally separate things. "Restore Points" are space used INSIDE your OS partition that contains old versions of changed files so that you can "roll back" changes to a given point in time.

Again, the way you check how much space is available for Restore Points is to do this:

- Start -> right-click "Computer" -> choose "Properties"
- Click the "System protection" link in the left pane
- Under "Protection Settings", click the drive in question to highlight it and then click "Configure..."

Have you actually followed these steps?

Maybe I'm misunderstanding you. Here is a screenshot of the System Protection page.

To me, it seems like the restore points can only use up to 9.31gb, but again, maybe I am misunderstanding the concept.

 

[sminlal]

OK - you've found the right spot and it looks like your system will allow no more than about 10GB of space for restore points - although it looks like your current usage is actually zero.

Does the "unknown" folder in WinDirStat pretty much account for the difference in sizes that you're seeing? I'm wondering if WinDirStat may not be able to see inside that folder because it lacks admin privileges. Perhaps you could try starting WinDirStat using "Run As Administrator" (right-click the WinDirStat link to get this option).

Edit: Actually, from the WinDirStat output it looks like the ~70G of "Unknown" is included within the ~380GB of total space used by files - so if you're only showing 50GB free then that's not likely to be the issue.

Have you tried checking the partition layout of your disk? I'm wondering if the C: partition doesn't fill up the whole drive. Check the partition layout by using Disk Management:

- Start -> right-click "Computer" and select "Manage"
- Click "Disk Management" in the left pane
- Scroll down to the bottom of the middle pane to see the partition layout.

 

[OddsAgainst]

OK - you've found the right spot and it looks like your system will allow no more than about 10GB of space for restore points - although it looks like your current usage is actually zero.

Does the "unknown" folder in WinDirStat pretty much account for the difference in sizes that you're seeing? I'm wondering if WinDirStat may not be able to see inside that folder because it lacks admin privileges. Perhaps you could try starting WinDirStat using "Run As Administrator" (right-click the WinDirStat link to get this option).

Are you suggesting I delete this folder. This 70gb folder is actually switching between being an Unknown folder and a folder called Files in the Temp folder. If I were to delete this, how would I go about doing this?

 

[sminlal]

I wasn't suggesting to delete the folder, I was suggesting that you run WinDirStat with admin privileges so that you could tell what folder it was and what files were in it - that way you'd know why that space was being used and could decide what to do about it.

What do you mean when you say it's "switching" between "Unknown" and "\Temp\Files"?

Did you see the part of my previous post about checking the partitions (I have a feeling I was editing that post as you were reading it).

 

[OddsAgainst]

When I said it was switching between those two, I meant that before when I posted, the files which are taking up so much space displayed as unknown, but now they show up in the Temp folder named Files. I still have no idea what the files are used for, but if it is in the Temp folder, I should be able to get rid of it, right?

 

[sminlal]

Do you mean that they showed up as "Files" when you ran WinDirStat with administrative privileges?

You should be able to get rid of something in the Temp Folder. When I'm in any doubt what I usually do is to rename the file or folder (to "Files_ToBeDeleted", for example), then reboot and run the system for a day or two to see if anything breaks. If not, then I feel confident that I can go back in and delete it. If there's a problem, I can just rename it back to the original name again.

Did you check the partition layout?

 

[WyomingKnott]

If you are talking about "files" in Windirstat, you can expand that node and see the biggest files in it.

But I have the feeling that I may have lost track of this thread.

 

[OddsAgainst]

My comp seems to run fine when I renamed the temp folder, but my question now is, how did I accumulate almost 1/5 of my hard drive in that folder?

 

[sminlal]

I'd have a look in the folder using Explorer to see what the file names and dates are. That may give you a clue as to where they came from.

Has that accounted for the missing space?

 

[OddsAgainst]

I really have no idea what TMP33309230785abfddk12 is supposed to tell me. Most of the larger 1gb files were made back in October 2010. This is about the time I built the rig, so I assume it has something to do with the programs I downloaded on there through Steam. And yes, it does account for the missing space.