No reason for HDD to be full

EdLad · 18 Jul 2017

I know you've seen this problem before. About 6 months ago, our HDD was so full, we couldn't even print. This was a 500GB drive. I bought a 1TB drive, and put everything from the old drive on it. I have been *very* reluctant to download anything, but I have made minimal downloads, and saved rather small files. Now my new drive has only about 3GB left free! But I can't find out where the files are that's taking so much space. They simply do not show up. How can I find out what/where they are? Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Ranger4 · 18 Jul 2017

You could download Treesize Free & that will tell you what is taking up your disc space. Below is their download site:

JAM Software - Customer Area

I use the free version & it gives you very detailed lists of what & where the space is being used for.

EdLad · 18 Jul 2017

Thank you very much. I'll give it a try.

EdLad · 18 Jul 2017

I think I found it. Windows shows 756.1GB, and under that is a Temp file of 674.6GB. Can I safely delete that Temp file? If I do, will it re-establish itself on reboot, and is it needed at all?

Ranger4 · 18 Jul 2017

Deleting Temp files & folders can be fatal as some files might be essential for Windows to operate.

Have you run Windows Disc Clean up. You should find that in Control Panel, right click on it & select Run as Administrator. When it has finished, reboot the computer as Win Disc Clean up does not remove unnecessary files until you reboot. You may notice that it will tell you it is updating things during the reboot process. This should clean up unnecessary Temp files.

Do you have Ccleaner installed, if so run that as well, if not your can download & install the free version from this website.

CCleaner - Free Download or try CCleaner Professional - Piriform

This program can remove Browser Histories & other files that can fill the hard drive with unwanted rubbish.

Keep us informed as to how you get on.

EdLad · 19 Jul 2017

Thank you again for your help. I guess I got lucky. Almost all of the temp files have been deleted, with no apparent problem. It's nice to have more than half of the drive free. Life is good again. :)

Megahertz07 · 19 Jul 2017

There is no reason to have 756.1GB on your Windows temp folder.
Some Trojan / Virus programs uses a computer to host the data they collect from other computers.
Do you have a good antivirus and a good firewall?
Do a complete virus scan on your computer.
Download, install and run SUPERAntiSpyware - Downloading File

Layback Bear · 19 Jul 2017

To keep control of my 'temps' I use Ccleaner set at default and Windows 7 Disk Cleanup.
I use these methods about 2 or more times a day.

Jack

EdLad · 19 Jul 2017

Thanks for the additional comments. Some of the files I found dated back to 2012, so 5 years ago. Maybe that's why there were so many?

Megahertz07 · 19 Jul 2017

There are 2 places with temporary files
- System (Windows) files: C:\Windows\Temp
- User files : C:\Users"name"\AppData\Local\Temp

I select all and then shift+delete. Files that are in use can't be deleted. I do it once a week.