Improper low space warning for SDD due to symlink

Hello All,

I have several drives on my computer. My main drive with Windows 7 is a SanDisk Extreme 240 GB SSD. I also have a 500 GB HDD. The SSD is my C: Drive, and the HDD is my D: Drive.

To save space, I have my User directory stored on my D: Drive. The folder is connected to my C: drive with a symlink. Everything seemed to be working at first, but now Windows is giving me a low storage space warning on my C: drive. It appears to be including the storage space of my Users folder from my D: drive on my C: drive. This is preventing me from installing new applications.

I attached some screen shots. You can see the disk claims it has 211 GB of used storage, but its contents only account for 152 GB.

Please help me fix this. I really want to be able to download my Steam games.

logicearth said:

The size reported is not taking the symlink into account. The Used Space in drive properties is calculated from the drive bitmap which maps every ever bit. Its as accurate as any means. The contents of the symlink are not counted within that bitmap.

Please explain to me the differences in these two screen shots. To me, it still looks like the Users file is the culprit of the missing 58 GB.

I sincerely apologize for bringing this up again. I'm just beginning to feel a bit desperate. It has been over 2 weeks since my last post, and I still haven't been able to resolve this issue. There are things that I would really love to be able to install on my computer. It is quite discouraging.

I would be ever so grateful if someone could shed some light on this issue. Thank you kindly.

Ztruker said:

Can you install and run Treesize Free? It will give you a good picture of what is using space on your hard drive. For instance, looking at my C: drive:



You can navigate down the folder tree to see exactly where space is going. To get a complete picture, show hidden files and folders and hidden operating system files via Control Panel, Folder Options, View tab.

Oh Thank You! I can finally see where that missing storage has really gone thanks to this awesome little program. There are two hidden files taking up the room. One is pagefile.sys with 32 GB and the other is hiberfil.sys at 24 GB. I've disabled hybernation to get rid of hiberfil.sys. Now I just need to move my system's virtual memory to another drive. I should be able to figure that out from here.

Thanks again!