windows 7 still eating disk space

Now with WinDirStat I suggest you further examine \Users

That's where the problem is.

Have you possibly filled up your disk with videos, pics, music?

Your system areas are in order.

No,

Users file is ok:
30 Go Music, 10 Go Pictures, 20 Go downloads, 45 Go documents and mails

The problem is that the sums announced by WinDirStat or SizeTree (140 to 150 Go of files + 30 Go free = 170 to 180 Go) are farly below the capacity of the partition (280 Go) !

The weird thing is that it doesn't appear in WinDirStat or SizeTree...



Thank you for your help. I hope this will be solved (I'm even not sure that format/re-install will solve the problem...I have this laptop for only 1 month !).

StephaneB,
You have an inordinately large c:\Users directory.

I have a 120 Gigabyte drive and here is a snapshot of WirDirStat output.



Have you run MalwareBytes yet. If you don't find actual data files taking up the > 100 Gigabytes on your C, then I strongly recommend running MalwareBytes.

After downloading MalwareBytes, then turn off your anti-virus, anti-malware software until after malwarebytes is finished.

Malwarebytes

Hi all,

thanks for your answer but I know each MB of the 105Gb ! lots of music, lots of heavy working documents (matlab files, data files...etc), lots of references (papers, reports...), lots of pictures...

The problem is that the sum of the sizes of the different files shown by WinDirStat or SizeTree (approx. 180 Go including 30Go free space) is farely below the actual size of my partition (280 Go). The 100 Go that I've lost are hidden somewhere and did not appear in WinDirStaT/SizeTree. They appear only when I compare the size of the disk (announced in Win Explorer) and the size of the files (shown by WinDirStat/SizeTree).

My question is not a question about the size of a file (it would be pretty easy to identify the source of the problem) but about the "ghost" Go's: Where are they ?

Stephane.

P.S. All my personal files are on partition C: since I did not take the time to partition my disk when I received the laptop !

Did you have an opportunity to run MalwareBytes?

Sorry, I forgot this question. But yes, I ran it and I ran also SuperAntispyware. Nothing was found.

S.

Well I've run out of ideas.

My only suggestion now is to save all data dear to your heart and do a clean install.

SSD / HDD : Optimize for Windows Reinstallation

I'm doing a backup and will re-install Win7 (hoping it won't happen again in one month...).

Btw, thank you for your help.

If anybody else find a solution, I'm interested (at least to prevent future problems...).

Stephane.

Sounds like a good plan.

Because you may be infected by a very evil piece of malware, for the reinstall I recommend the appproach given in following link and be sure to use the Clean All command mentioned there are being sure to follow the format sequence suggested there.

SSD / HDD : Optimize for Windows Reinstallation

just to say, I have found the solution!

it is KB979223 fix and can be found here

it works for me :)