Windows 7: Help Needed Cleaning Disk

Here's a list of the the various diskpart commands:

Calzon:

Have you specifically done this:

Enabled viewing of system and hidden files-----and then gone into your users directory under C users and searched for a folder that is unexpectedly large?

You may have some yet unidentified type of temp files that are not readily ID'ed by WinDirStat or Explorer.

Offhand, I'd expect that type of thing is more likely the explanation than some other thing that Diskpart might cure.

I have not paid extreme attention to these issues, but I can't recall one that was not ultimately resolved---typically by finding a pile of unneeded files in some folder which were NOT removed by cleaning apps.

A Description of the Diskpart Command-Line Utility is the official diskpart guide, after i run advanced windows cleaner, then run ccleaner, i run wise disk cleaner and it finds hundreds of files that were missed. it's a good program, just don't allow the installer to give you unwanted software. i like thier registry cleaner too, all freeware

I had previously enabled viewing of system/hidden files for all my folders, and I spent several hours last night looking for large files/folders within Windows Explorer. Searching for files created/modified in the past few days, files over a certain size, etc., unfortunately I didn't find any "smoking gun"

I am a little nervous using diskpart, since a mistake could cause big problems for me, so I am now contemplating what I wanted to avoid, a reformat and reinstallation of Windows. First I will do a complete backup then use diskpart. If unsuccessful with diskpart, I will reformat and reinstall (not a restore) Windows.

I usually prefer to avoid a total reformat/reinstall because even though it may eliminate the issues, it usually masks the underlying cause so I may never know for sure what happened.

I will report my findings back to this thread so it is added to the “knowledge base”. Thank you for all the suggestions.

Well I gave up and simply reformatted my SSD and reinstalled Windows. From the screenshots below (Drive Properties and WinDirStat), the numbers all appear to be correct and I no longer have a problem with missing/hidden 34GB of drive space.

I became most alarmed when I read a post on this board from a person who reported a similar problem. Someone suggested their problem could be related to a virus that copied all/some files to a hidden spot/status. Personally I think one of my Blue Screens during the past week might have corrupted my SSD, but I will probably never know.

Thank you to everyone for taking the time to try to solve my problem. At least I picked up some good tips to adjust performance and eliminate wasted disk space, so the entire process was not wasted time.

AppData, Windows Update staging files and other Temporary files can pile up and take gigs of space without always being visible. I find that CCleaner gets these best.

IE9 can be set in Internet Options>Advanced to empty temp files when browser is closed. Firefox must be cleared manually from Tools tab.