Windows 7: My Hardrive is filling up with WHAT?

Hello,
I have a 500 Gig system drive. It now only has 130 GBytes free. This is after I went through it and deleted all the programs I could. Things like removing most major components that I don't use from OpenOffice and /trial browsers. I checked my videos/pictures/music/documents and it came out that those were only 20 some Gbytes. What is using up 320 GBytes of my system drive and is there a way to find out and maybe free some up. On XP I had one drive of 160 GBytes and was only using less than a third of it with everything and three active accounts. Will someone please assist? I don't know how this is happening.
Thanks for any help!
glennc

Would suggest that you open your C drive and right click on each folder in turn and see which ones are showing excessive size. Then investigate that folder for possible multiple duplications. I would check you images and music and video folders first!

Try this:

Go to My Computer >> (C Drive >> Right click Program Files or Program Files (x86) >> Click on Properties

This will tell you how much that folder is using. If you're running a 64 bit system, which I am sure you are, open the properties menu on both of these folders. Give it a minute while it calculates how much each of these folders is using on your PC. Chances are these folders are using most of your memory as all the program / games are put into these folders.

You can also delete all but your most recent system restore point. Old system restore points will sometime eat up a good chunk of hard drive space.

GO TO:
Start->computer->C drive (Right click)->Properties->In general tab below pie graph should be two options to check ("compress drive to disk space" [Probably not checked] and "allow files on drive to have contents indexed..." make sure both are checked!!!)->Click apply (or ok)

it may take awhile to complete. do before bed or something. Afterwards run CCleaner

I had only GB's left on my hard drive and afterwards I had around 10 (and for a 35GB hard disk space total it helps.)

1. Run this program WinDirStat - Windows Directory Statistics. That will tell you how much is on your system.
2. Open an elevated command prompt (run as admin) and type (or paste) vssadmin list shadowstorage , then hit Enter - that will give you amount allocated for the shadowstorage (the area where the OS stores the restore points).
3. Once you have those numbers, it should add up to the used space. Post the numbers and we'll have a look at them.

It may be temp folders . If you dont run disk cleanup, sometimes temp tends to increase in size .

Look at temp folder : Press windows button and R simultaneously on your keyboard to open the run window; type %temp% and hit enter . You may need to delete it .

Most secured way to delete all the unnecessary things .... download CCleaner, check everything in the cleaner tab, and run cleaner . It will free up a lot of spaces .

But it will not remove the older unnecessary backups (those are automatically done ) . Tuneup utilities does it nicely , though it is not free .

So either use disk cleanup utility or ccleaner . You will get a lot of free space back .

Wow you guys are the greatest. I now have so many areas to investigate it will probably take all night. Thank you one and all. Here is what I can confirm at this time, all my documents, music files, pictures, videos are only taking say 20 Gig. I have have 118 Gig free. I regularly run CCleaner and let it delete all. Once a week or so I run WinUtilites, its like Advanced System Care, goes a little deeper than CC does. Since I have the System Reserved Partition hidden I only know remember that there goes another 100 GB.
So I will try all the methods that aren't above my skill level and we shall see what we shall see. I do appreciate the assistance.
glennc

Windows Disk Cleanup right click and run as Administrator to get the temp Windows files etc.
I found that out the hard way. One of those Doh! moments.

Mike

Trying Right Clicking On The C:\ Drive And Cleaning It And Defragment It