Something eating my Gigabytes!

cormie

Would appreciate any help with this! I have a 750gb hard drive and I have over 400GB of known files. I never really kept track of the space so this could have crept up over time, but then all of a sudden I get a low disk space warning, which I haven't gotten on any pc in years! I checked and I had only 180mb left :eek:

I did a clean up of files I needed to put on external hard drives etc and after everything was clean, I checked and had 52gb free. Now since then, without having downloaded anything, just regular usage, I now have 4gb free

I just ran malwarebytes and CCleaner and nothing was detected and only a few 100mb freed up.

I'm a little confused as to where all my storage is going! Any other suggestions of what I can do to find out would be greatly appreciated!

waraf

Check what files were modified yesterday by using the modified tag in the windows explorer search box like this:

Modified:01/05/2015

rayfitzharris

cormie wrote: »

Would appreciate any help with this! I have a 750gb hard drive and I have over 400GB of known files. I never really kept track of the space so this could have crept up over time, but then all of a sudden I get a low disk space warning, which I haven't gotten on any pc in years! I checked and I had only 180mb left :eek:

I did a clean up of files I needed to put on external hard drives etc and after everything was clean, I checked and had 52gb free. Now since then, without having downloaded anything, just regular usage, I now have 4gb free

I just ran malwarebytes and CCleaner and nothing was detected and only a few 100mb freed up.

I'm a little confused as to where all my storage is going! Any other suggestions of what I can do to find out would be greatly appreciated!

Try windirstat

bonzodog2

Try Treesize. Also check space used by RestorePoints and VolumeShadowCopies (Previous Versions tab on drive properties)

cormie

Thanks for all the suggestions, I haven't tried any of the programs yet, would these pin point the exact files, and if they do, how do I know if they are safe to delete, or how do I stop them from getting so big again?

I just opened up C drive, selected all visible folders and files (I've hidden files set to show) including windows, program files, program files (x 86) and everything else and checked the file size of everything and it came to 497GB which sounds about right, so there must be 200GB somewhere I'm unaware of. The HD is actually 700gb, not 750gb that I said in the OP..

AVAST full system virus scan has also come back clean, so that's CCleaner, Malwarebytes and Avast all clean.

RedXIV

rayfitzharris wrote: »

Try windirstat

This will definitely help, it will give you a visual representation of how the hard drive is filled. Good for identifying where your space is going

waraf

See if you can identify the problematic files first and then let us know what you find before you start deleting anything.

cormie

Ok, this is the result from windirstat, everything seems as expected and there's no sign of any 200GB directories, USERS being 394GB is as expected as I know what's there, but then if you look at the size of the HD, it says 507GB It's definitely 700GB and it's registered as 698 in my computer when you check properties.

Ste-

expand the users folder some more (maybe blank out the usernames) so we can see where that space is going.

cormie

The users folder is fine, I know exactly what's taking up that space

NegativeOne

Yeah the c partition is only 500gb meaning you probably have another partition or unallocated space of just under 200gb. In the start menu search for disk management. You should be able to get a look at your partitions in there.

maki

Windirstat won't show some folders which it doesn't have access to - in particular System Volume Information where all your System Restore points are. This folder can be quite large.

Run "vssadmin list shadowstorage" (without quotes) from an elevated cmd prompt to check how much is being used.

cormie

I installed W7 from fresh when I got the laptop as far as I remember and always make a point of not partitioning any drives and just keeping the whole space available and organise everything well. The drive appears to be all visible in properties and disk management as I'd expect, but there's 200GB gone somewhere.

Plus when I cleaned up the other day, it went to 50GB free, then over the course of 2 days, yesterday I think I checked and it was 32gb free, then today it's 4gb free, so even after clearing about 50gb to external hard drives, it's managed to refill all the empty space again

waraf

I found this on the Microsoft forum. Might be of some help to you. Also, system restore files aren't show in windows explorer so it's possible you're creating system restore files too often. Anyway, here it is.....

Okay. I just beat the same problem and none of the stuff I saw in the few threads I checked was even slightly helpful.
My system is a WIndows 7 Starter Netbook that I use primarily as an ersatz FM Tuner.
The problem, for me anyway, was that WindowsMediaPlayer (and/or maybe Winamp) was storing all the data it downloaded to play the station I was listening to in a different file for every listening session, and never deleting any of it.
Furthermore, all these files are stored in super hidden files that don't show up in Explorer or Explorer searches.
To get rid of them it will be helpful to to be comfortable with old DOS style commands, though obviously there may be some way within Windows to get rid of them that I didn't discover.
You have to run COMMAND as an ADMINISTRATOR. (Click Start / All Programs / Accessories and then RightClick Command Prompt and then choose Run as Administrator.)
Assuming my UserName were XYZZY all of the offending files were stored in multiple subdirectories of
C:\Users\XYZZY\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5\
The subdirectories have nice names like I0BK3QE9. (Was this someone's idea of a joke?)
So I suggest navigating to the Content.IE5 directory using one or more CD commands.
Once there ask for a directory list of files named *.dat in all subdirectories. (The command is: "dir *.dat /S") If the grand total of files listed isn't some humongous number, then you have a different problem than I did.
If there are too many files listed you may want to redirect the file-list to a file. E.g. "dir *.dat /S > C:\filelist" The object is to find some common way to identify the files you want to delete. For me all the files were named WQXR*.dat.
I checked that those were the only files I would delete by listing them first with "dir WQXR*.dat
For me, the list was good so I typed "del WQXR*.dat" and now more than half my disk is free space.

cormie

waraf wrote: »

I found this on the Microsoft forum. Might be of some help to you. Also, system restore files aren't show in windows explorer so it's possible you're creating system restore files too often. Anyway, here it is.....

Okay. I just beat the same problem and none of the stuff I saw in the few threads I checked was even slightly helpful.
My system is a WIndows 7 Starter Netbook that I use primarily as an ersatz FM Tuner.
The problem, for me anyway, was that WindowsMediaPlayer (and/or maybe Winamp) was storing all the data it downloaded to play the station I was listening to in a different file for every listening session, and never deleting any of it.
Furthermore, all these files are stored in super hidden files that don't show up in Explorer or Explorer searches.
To get rid of them it will be helpful to to be comfortable with old DOS style commands, though obviously there may be some way within Windows to get rid of them that I didn't discover.
You have to run COMMAND as an ADMINISTRATOR. (Click Start / All Programs / Accessories and then RightClick Command Prompt and then choose Run as Administrator.)
Assuming my UserName were XYZZY all of the offending files were stored in multiple subdirectories of
C:\Users\XYZZY\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5\
The subdirectories have nice names like I0BK3QE9. (Was this someone's idea of a joke?)
So I suggest navigating to the Content.IE5 directory using one or more CD commands.
Once there ask for a directory list of files named *.dat in all subdirectories. (The command is: "dir *.dat /S") If the grand total of files listed isn't some humongous number, then you have a different problem than I did.
If there are too many files listed you may want to redirect the file-list to a file. E.g. "dir *.dat /S > C:\filelist" The object is to find some common way to identify the files you want to delete. For me all the files were named WQXR*.dat.
I checked that those were the only files I would delete by listing them first with "dir WQXR*.dat
For me, the list was good so I typed "del WQXR*.dat" and now more than half my disk is free space.

Thanks a lot for that but I don't think that's the issue here. I don't stream anything through winamp or WMP, or don't use IE.


I think the shadow files may be the issue, I just tried to command prompt thingy suggested above and I see 188GB in use? I don't know if that IS the problem for sure, but it definitely looks like it? Can someone here confirm, and if so, what cna I do?

waraf

The shadow files may just be system restore points so try deleting all but the most recent system restore points. Just put the following into Google and you'll be presented with easy steps.....

how to delete system restore windows 7

maki

cormie wrote: »

Thanks a lot for that but I don't think that's the issue here. I don't stream anything through winamp or WMP, or don't use IE.


I think the shadow files may be the issue, I just tried to command prompt thingy suggested above and I see 188GB in use? I don't know if that IS the problem for sure, but it definitely looks like it? Can someone here confirm, and if so, what cna I do?

Run "vssadmin resize shadowstorage /For=C: /On=C: /MaxSize=50GB"

Change 50Gb to whatever you like. It sets a maximum size for System Restore points and deletes any extra ones you have over that maximum.

bonzodog2

Ccleaner will get rid of Restore Points for you, apart from the most recent.
ShadowCopies may be particularly relevant if you edit large files. If your backup strategy is good, disable VSC and you'll get that space back.

cormie

Thanks again for the help everyone. Managed to free up about 135GB by deleting all but most recent restore point following these steps: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-ie/windows/delete-restore-point#1TC=windows-7


Any idea how many points windows would typically store and how big the most recent one is likely to be and what it's based on? It evidently doesn't contain all personal files (say the 400gb I have of personal files). Seems there's still about 40/60gb unaccounted for so this might be just the most recent restore point? Also I ran Ccleaner but it didn't free this space so maybe it has to be selected somewhere to enable this.




Aha, I just followed these steps http://windows.microsoft.com/en-ie/windows7/how-much-disk-space-does-system-restore-require and I see I had the % set at 50:o and it says current usage 54GB which makes up the extra space I was missing, whoo! I put this back down to 8% which will allow me 64gb for restore points which should be plenty for now

Thanks a lot for helping to resolve that everyone!