Hard drive Space & Reinstall Windows 7

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  1. Posts : 11,840
    64-bit Windows 8.1 Pro
       #11

    In your situation, I would consider a format and reinstall, as well as a larger drive...
      My Computer


  2. Posts : 12,177
    Windows 7 Ult x64 - SP1/ Windows 8 Pro x64
       #12

    eiger3970 said:
    This is the same problem I had. I just fully installed Windows 7 after using Windows XP. Had about 20GB free on 80GB c drive. Now I only have 2.75GB free c drive. I can't find anywhere to remove 60GB of stuff. My computer C drive only shows a few small items in the files...nothing to delete that takes up 60GB. I need to use the migration wizard to put about 20GB from the D drive back onto the new Windows 7 C drive and can't?
    Welcome to Seven Forums eiger3970.

    It's probably your restore points and shadow copies.

    Go to Windows Explorer,
    Right click your OS partition,
    Click 'Properties',
    In the 'General' tab click 'Disk Cleanup',
    Click 'Clean up system files',
    Click the 'More Options' tab,
    Under 'System restore and Shadow copies' click 'Clean Up'
    When asked if you are sure click 'Yes'.

    I just did this and my free space went from 11GB to 51GB.

    You can set the limits for 'System restore and Shadow copies', but will have to find it again. Will let you know.

    Edit:
    Found it,
    How to Change the System Protection Disk Space Usage in Window 7
    Another great tutorial from Brink
    Last edited by Dave76; 01 Oct 2009 at 13:17.
      My Computer


  3. Posts : 65
    Windows 7
       #13

    Thanks...I did that but it hasn't made any free space. I even had a look at removing programs, but there's nothing there to remove as it's a new Windows 7 install.
    I also rechecked what's in C drive and the files show the biggest file to be only 12MB. I'm still looking for 50GB of files to delete? Could it be in hidden files. I still have to find where to show hidden files on the new Windows 7.
      My Computer


  4. Posts : 7,878
    Windows 7 Ultimate x64
       #14

    My suggestion is to download a copy of TreeSizeFree and run that. This will scan your drive and will show which directories are taking up the most space.

    Note: Don't worry or concern yourself with the C:\windows directory or the C:\windows\winsxs directory. WinSXS is know to drive people bonkers because it looks huge, but it's a collection of hard links to files scattering in other areas of the file system and within C:\windows itself...so the numbers that you see from Windows explorer or tools like TreeSizeFree or WinDirStat are not accurate.

    Note the size of your page file. It's often set to the size of your RAM or 1.5X your RAM. You can find by right clicking my computer, properties, Advanced System Protection, Settings under Performance, and Advanced. You can reduce the size of the page file or move it to another hard drive on your computer if you have one.

    As others have mentioned, you will have a hibernate file hidden on C which is the same size as RAM. If this is a computer that you don't use hibernation for, disable it with powercfg -h off

    And like others have said, adjust the amount of space dedicated to system restore points. Right click my Computer, properties, System protection, Hightlight C:\ and hit configure. My default, it uses 5% of yoru hard drive. In my case on my work computer, that amounts to 10GB....and it's currenly using 7.75GB of that.


    Edit: Also empty the recycle bin and run the disk cleanup tool...as you could have some rather large memory dump or error report files chewing up space.


    I recently installed an 80GB SSD drive for my OS drive. By doing the above, and moving my page file to my 1TB storage drive, my box has everything loaded that i need, including Crysis and Wolfenstein and I have about 30GB used total and nearly 50GB free.
      My Computer


  5. Posts : 16,130
    7 X64
       #15

    In additon to the other suggestions, try this:

    in start search box, type:

    cleanmgr /sageset:1

    Press Enter. Tick all the boxes except setup log files and click OK.

    That saves those settings - it doesn't do the cleaning.

    To cleanup , in start search, type cleanmgr /sagerun:1

    Then press enter.

    You can run it again - by typing the above sagerun command , or make a shortcut - rt click desktop, select New>Shortcut, enter cleanmgr /sageset:1 , then Next, Finish.
      My Computers


  6. Posts : 1,607
    Windows 7 x64 finally!
       #16

    eiger, do you have a windows.old folder? it might contain a lot of leftovers from XP (which can be useful if you didn't mean to throw that away)
    Look here: Windows.old Folder - Delete
      My Computer


  7. Posts : 1,607
    Windows 7 x64 finally!
       #17

    SIW2 said:
    In additon to the other suggestions, try this:

    in start search box, type:

    cleanmgr /sageset:1

    Press Enter. Tick all the boxes except setup log files and click OK.

    That saves those settings - it doesn't do the cleaning.

    To cleanup , in start search, type cleanmgr /sagerun:1

    Then press enter.

    You can run it again - by typing the above sagerun command , or make a shortcut - rt click desktop, select New>Shortcut, enter cleanmgr /sageset:1 , then Next, Finish.
    Very nice hint SIW2. Tell me, what is the difference between that and right clicking on the drive and selecting Disk Cleanup? I think it brings more options, right? I can't raise it both ways to comapre.
    Tks
      My Computer


  8. Posts : 12,177
    Windows 7 Ult x64 - SP1/ Windows 8 Pro x64
       #18

    eiger3970 said:
    Thanks...I did that but it hasn't made any free space. I even had a look at removing programs, but there's nothing there to remove as it's a new Windows 7 install.
    I also rechecked what's in C drive and the files show the biggest file to be only 12MB. I'm still looking for 50GB of files to delete? Could it be in hidden files. I still have to find where to show hidden files on the new Windows 7.
    There's not much you can't find in Tutorials, suggest to bookmark it :)

    How to Show or Hide All Hidden Files, Folders, and Drives in Windows 7
    Last edited by Dave76; 01 Oct 2009 at 23:46.
      My Computer


  9. Posts : 65
    Windows 7
       #19

    Wow, heaps of replies...makes it easier.
    I think cleaning up the Previous Windows installation(s) or the win old will fix it. The thing is, I think I still might need to keep the win old until I can first run the transfer wizard to transfer all my c drive settings from the old Win XP back onto the new Win 7?

    I won't run this final clean until I can be sure I can still run the transfer wiz. I'll check the Win 7 tutorial link now.
      My Computer


  10. Posts : 5,941
    Linux CENTOS 7 / various Windows OS'es and servers
       #20

    johngalt said:
    I seriously doubt that W7 takes up 69 GB - you might want to check again....

    In addition, you should check the size of folders, particularly Program Files an your user folder.

    Hi there
    I have a reasonably large W7 x-64 installation - and its still only around 32 GB on the HD and thats because I still have a load of files I can get rid of. A typical W7 installation could be around 25 GB.


    There's a great program (Free) called Treesize which will display files and directories in a graphical space used manner - great for pruning out / showing what you've got on the drives.

    Attached program and image

    cheers
    jimbo
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails Hard drive Space & Reinstall Windows 7-tree.png  
      My Computer


 
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