C drive keeps filling up on its own

Hi,


Sorry if this is a long post.



The free space on my C drive is constantly very low and sometimes I have no free space at all, even if I haven't downloaded or installed anything. When I do install things (which doesn't happen very often) I install them on an external drive that has a lot of free space left.


But even then, the installation can't happen sometimes, because some temp files need to go to C, where there is no space. The same thing happens if I try to download a file to the external drive; it doesn't download because C has no space. At some occasions I can't open images on my PC, or see gifs on the internet, when I have no space on C.



For a long time I thought it was the pagefile that caused this, because it kept growing, but apparently it's not, since it looks like it stopped growing at 3,70GB.


So, yesterday, when I had 0 bytes left on C, I decided to open CCleaner and remove some unneeded files to clear up some space. In the end, CCleaner said it cleared 727MB, which was more than I expected. I immediately went to check how much free space C had. It said something aroud 500MB. I refreshed the window and it showed a little less. I refreshed again, and it was now even less. I kept refreshing every second, and the free space was always a couple of MB less than before, until it went to 0 bytes again. I was not downloading anything during all this.


It looked like something found the space to grow more and it did. I checked to see if Windows found the opportunity to create system restore files and therefore filled the newly cleared space, but it didn't.


It should be noted, however, that it's not always reduced to 0 bytes. I have 5MB of free space now, for example, and whatever it is that keeps growing doesn't seem to grow right now.


I looked about this online and saw that some people have similar problems. In some threads I found, malware or viruses were suggested as possible causes. I scanned my PC with Microsoft Security Essensials, and it was clean. I downloaded Malwarebytes and tried to scan, but it always said that Malwarebytes encountered a problem during the scan. I uninstalled it and tried to install it again, to see if it would work now, but I couldn't install it this time (on the external drive) because C didn't have enough free space, even though it had something like 6MB.


What could be causing this problem?


Thanks in advance.

Welcome to the Forum

To run Windows smoothly you must have at least 5G.
What explain your free space getting lower and lower is virtual memory (pagefile) getting bigger. If virtual memory size is managed by windows it will grow as soon as you make some free space.
If you have only a HDD it's time to buy a small SSD (128G) for windows and programs and use the HDD only for data.

Download and Use WinDirStat. This will tell you where all your disk space is being used up.

How big space have you set for System Restore? Do you use a scheduled task to create regular backups of all your files?

Thanks for your replies, everyone.

Snick, Thanks. What added files do you mean? The ones that take over the free space? I don't know what or where these files are.

I ran CCleaner again, but there was no such option. Maybe because it's an older version. I downloaded Chameleon and it worked! It completed a scan after about an hour and found 167 threats. I cleared them, but unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a log from this scan. All I can find is one that lasted 30 seconds and found no threats. Most of the threats were orange and the ones that were red were mostly Adware. It's odd, though, because I never had any adds pop up or something like that.

The space problem is still here. Could the 167 threads be unrelated? And could Adware be what prevented Malwarebytes from scanning?

Yes, I use firefox. I didn't know it caused double spaced paragraphs.

Megahertz07, thanks. Yes, my system definately doesn't run smoothly and low space always caused problems.

The pagefile has stopped growing once it reached 3,70GB. It doesn't seem to grow more than that even if there is free space. I have tried to make windows create the pagefile on the external drive instead of C, but it didn't work.

iko22, great idea, thanks. I downloaded it. But I can't really see which are the files that keep growing out of control.


I have the system restore space set at 1,86GB, but none of it is used. It's at 0 bytes now.


I think I had disabled automatic backups because they kept growing. How can I check if it's really disabled, to make sure?

It seems that is nothing wrong with your computer software.
The problem is that you MUST install another drive.
If you have only a HDD it's time to buy a small SSD (128G) for windows and programs and use the HDD only for data.

Go to the Backup and Restore Center in the Control Panel. Go to the Change Settings option. If you have any automatic backups, you should be able to change the settings there.

ByeDiskSpace said:

Thanks for your replies, everyone.
...
iko22, great idea, thanks. I downloaded it. But I can't really see which are the files that keep growing out of control.

I have the system restore space set at 1,86GB, but none of it is used. It's at 0 bytes now.

I think I had disabled automatic backups because they kept growing. How can I check if it's really disabled, to make sure?

You can use WinDirStat to monitor the disk space utilisation over a few days. Take a screenshot of WinDirStat each day and compare results. See which directories stay the same size and which directories increase proportionally to your problem.

Do as @wither 2 suggests, and go to Backup and Restore Centre to check your backup settings.

have a look in windows / temp folder

I cleared out 370GB the other day

I feel your pain! I had this exact problem until I became aware of the Temporary Files folder in Windows. I found out I was the proud owner of 204 GB worth of temporary files!!! (Go to C drive, Windows, Temp.) Prepare to be shocked.



I couldn't even delete them all at once. I cleared out 3 GB (you need Admin privilege) and since then everything has been running smoothly. No more unaccounted lost disk space.