Windows 7: My D drive says it's full and contains files I can't see

Chantaladrienne · 12 Feb 2012

Hi

I recently wiped my computer and installed windows 7 (home premium 64 bit). Almost all the work I do is directly onto an external drive and very little is saved onto the internal hard drive.

Suddenly last week a message said it could not perform its weekly back up as their was insufficient disc space. My D drive shows 230GB is used with only a few GB free.

I have found one file in a Windows Image Backup file on that drive which accounts for 50 GB but all the other files on the drive are under 100 KB.

Does anyone have any ideas?

Chantal

Golden · 12 Feb 2012

Hi Chantal,

Can you please post a screen capture image of your maximised Disk Management screen?

Click the Start Orb, and in the search box, type disk management. Click on Create and format hard disk partitions. You should see the image similar to that shown below.

Regards,
Golden

Chantaladrienne · 12 Feb 2012

Thanks for such a quick reply. Here you go. I hope this helps

Chantal

My D drive says it's full and contains files I can't see-disk-management-1.jpg

Golden · 12 Feb 2012

Hi,

OK. In Windows Explorer, do the following:

1. Click Tools, then Folder options.
2. Click the View tab
3. Make sure the option Show hidden files, folder and drives is checked, as shown below.
4. Click Apply, then click OK.
5. Close Explorer, and then re-open it.

Now browse your D: and check to see if you find any large files.

Regards,
Golden

Chantaladrienne · 12 Feb 2012

Hi

I already did this. There are 26 files, all 1 gb or under, plus the Windows Image Backup file which contains one 61 GB file and a few much smaller ones.

Golden · 12 Feb 2012

Hi,

OK. Lets try something different. Can you please download and install WinDirStat. Run it and see if it can help point to the large (invisible?) file/s.

WinDirStat - Permalinks to downloads and other content

Regards,
Golden

lehnerus2000 · 12 Feb 2012

How many backup files does Windows "Backup and Restore" show on that disc?

Chantaladrienne · 12 Feb 2012

Ok. Have done and this is what it shows. Is it holding onto to previous back-ups and is that what is taking up the the space?

My D drive says it's full and contains files I can't see-windirstat-1.jpg

Golden · 12 Feb 2012

Hi,

Yes, but also I see the .ZIP files hold the greatest proportion of space. What are those? Are they related to the backups?

Regards,
Golden

Chantaladrienne · 12 Feb 2012

Yes, it looks like all the backup files in the Chantal PC section are made up of zip files

Windows 7: My D drive says it's full and contains files I can't see

My D drive says it's full and contains files I can't see problems?