C Drive Space going down

Lewis24 · 22 Sep 2010

Hi,

I have had this laptop for about a month, having lost my previous laptop following a similar problem.

When I first got the laptop, I began to monitor free space on the C Drive, which varied between 35.8-36.5GB. After it hit 35.8GB, I stopped checking.

On Saturday, I checked the free space again, and it showed as 36.2GB. However, since Saturday, I have lost 0.8GB, with no visible regain apart from 0.1GB on startup.

It is currently at 35.4GB, the lowest I have seen it.

I haven't downloaded or installed anything since last Friday (a flash update) and no updates have been installed

A virus scan with Kasperksy Internet Security (fully updated) reveals no viruses.

This drop in free space isn't as extreme as the drop on the previous laptop, which went from around 17GB to 5GB.

Should I be concerned about this. Is what is happening to my computer normal?

Thanks in advance.

CGA1 · 22 Sep 2010

Most likely the page file shrinking and growing, at least on your new laptop (don't know about the old one, seems strange). If so it is normal. You can check the size of the page file in explorer directly under c: but you must enable "show hidden files" first.

Bare Foot Kid · 22 Sep 2010

Hello Lewis24, welcome to Seven Forums!

Have a look at this tutorial at the link below to see if you can regain any space.
Be sure to post back if you have further questions and to keep us informed.

Disk Cleanup : Extended

ShadowT · 22 Sep 2010

Some other possibilities:

System Restore Points
Offline Files (if you have them enabled)
Crash dumps (if you've crashed a lot some informational files could be taking up space). The link above that was posted should clean these error reporting files up

You could also try a program such as spacemonger (SpaceMonger) or Directory Size (Show Directory Size Utility - Check Folder Sizes, Find Large Files & Big Folders) which tell you what's eating up your space.

Finally, a great free cleaner program is CCleaner (crap cleaner) -> CCleaner - Optimization and Cleaning - Free Download

Lewis24 · 25 Sep 2010

Thanks for responses.

It took me a while to find the page file, but in the System tab on Control Panel, it says the size of it is 1967MB.

The free space on C Drive is now 35.3GB.

If the pagefile was shrinking and growing, wouldn't the free space be fluctuating a little bit? I don't appear to be regaining any space.

ETA: Under properties on C drive, it says that 24.2GB is being used. A few days ago it was 24.1GB. I still haven't downloaded or installed anything.