What is taking so much space on my hard drive?

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So, today I have realized that free space on my desktop was suspiciously low (I had only about 60 GB free space). I have a 500 GB SSD and a 500 GB regular hard drive for back up. I don't have a ton of programs installed to start with. Regardless, I uninstalled some unused programs, did a disk cleanup, and cleared my downloads folder.

Now, what is mind boggling is that I still have only about 100 GB empty space. If I grab everything in my C drive and check used space, it says 60 GB. I expect some discrepancy due to numerous reasons. But frankly, having 60 GB worth of files but 376 GB used space is confusing.

Any help is greatly appreciated. Also this is my first time posting, so go easy on me :P

Thank you.

user447142

Posted 2015-05-11T22:41:35.653

Reputation: 1

Question was closed 2015-05-12T13:51:57.507

1Have you checked Windows Restore Points? Depending on your settings and how old your Installation is, those can take up a lot of space. Also I guess you have emptied your trash ;) Edit: Also check the number one solution for nearly any Windows Problem: reboot – farosch – 2015-05-11T22:47:40.170

Thank you for your answer! I checked it. Used space for the restore point is about 24 GB. Reboot didn't make any measurable change. I wish I had forgot to empty the trash bin :P I have been using computers for over 15 years. Never saw such discrepancy. Also to add, I made sure to choose hidden folders as well while getting the 60 GB used space figure. – user447142 – 2015-05-11T22:58:25.317

What just came to my mind are the temp folders. I think c/Windows/temp and USERDIR/AppData/Roaming – farosch – 2015-05-11T23:07:34.593

I will check them. I had not check the temp folder. I assumed disk cleanup deals with that automatically. – user447142 – 2015-05-11T23:14:09.967

Should be so but idk. If Windows would be able to fix issues like this by itself they wouldn't occur in the first place :P At least I never had good experience with Windows repair mechanisms. Last System Repair of my Windows left me with an Explorer showing a 0byte big HDD for about a week. – farosch – 2015-05-11T23:17:52.677

Yep. I used the WinDirStat tool and granted, there was a massive build up of junk files in the temp folder (276 GB!). How those files survived through 2 disk cleanup attempts -system files included- is beyond me. – user447142 – 2015-05-11T23:22:41.673

Great! Remember to accept javabretts' answer, so that other users know its a solved question – farosch – 2015-05-11T23:25:33.330

1Just did. Cool. Thank you for your help as well. I also figured out why temp folder survived the cleanup. For whatever reason, I didn't have read access to it. Don't know why cuz I am the administrator and only user on this computer. I will try to reset the permissions and delete everything in it – user447142 – 2015-05-11T23:30:04.150

Answers

1

Download a utility such as WinDirStat, run it and examine the report. It should tell you about space taken-up by files which are typically hidden, such as swap and system files.

javabrett

Posted 2015-05-11T22:41:35.653

Reputation: 454

Thanks, I will download and try it. I will let you know if it works – user447142 – 2015-05-11T23:13:20.367

1Great tool! Turns out there was a massive build up of junk files in the windows temp folder! I had stopped manually checking the temp folder since Win 7. I assumed disk cleanup supposed to deal with that folder. Any idea why disk cleanup didn't delete these files or why it does not show up when I check size of the windows folder? Note that all hidden files are visible on my computer – user447142 – 2015-05-11T23:20:20.713

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I'm DJaxs and I will be willing to help. Let's try this solution.

  1. Go to the upper right-hand corner of your screen and go to Search.
  2. Search Disk Cleanup.
  3. Click Disk Cleanup.
  4. Select C:/ and click OK
  5. Wait for everything to load. (After that, you should see a list of unnecessary files that takes up memory.)

Dorian Jackson

Posted 2015-05-11T22:41:35.653

Reputation: 1

Hi. Thank you for your answer. Unfortunately I have already ran the disk cleanup twice, with system files included. It didn't help much :( – user447142 – 2015-05-11T23:12:32.860

I see by your reply with javabrett's answer. And no problem. Did WinDirStat help a lot? – Dorian Jackson – 2015-05-12T00:30:17.920

It did show me what folder was the problem. Turns out for some reason I don't have any permissions for the windows temp folder. – user447142 – 2015-05-12T00:34:20.753

Asked: 2015-05-11T22:41:35.653

Viewed: 9 955 times

Active: 2015-05-11T23:07:45.493