disk full???

Dramx · 02 Nov 2017

Pardon this question, but I'm not a Win guy, but this has me mystified. My 287GB C disk on my HP Pavillion is just about full. How did it get that way??? It sure wasn't that way a few months ago.

When I examine the contents, Computer->HP(C), and look individually (Organize->Properties) at each element, the total is only about 80GB.

I naturally did "Disk Cleanup", and that bought me maybe 5GB. I've scanned the disk with MS Security Essentials, and nothing bad is found.

How can I understand WHERE all that disk space is going??? Who is using it??? Help!

Ranger4 · 02 Nov 2017

You could download & install Tree Size free to see what is using the disc space.

TreeSize Free - Quickly Scan Directory Sizes and Find Space Hogs

Dramx · 03 Nov 2017

Thank you. That's a helpful tool, but it tells me that my drive C has a total of 91.7 GB in it. That's a sensible number. The OS, however, thinks that there is "1.61 GB free out of 287 GB". So Tree Size seems to be missing a HUGE chunk.

The number that Win7 comes up with is the pertinent one, because I get complaints from my software (e.g. Dropbox), that not enough room is available.

Dramx · 03 Nov 2017

Well, I should elaborate. When I command examination of Drive C, Tree Size gives a report for my that says

"This folder: Size 91.4 GB" and
"Drive: C:\ Size 287.1 GB" and

Name: C:\ Size 91.4 GB"

Duh? Makes no sense.

So I've told it to look at Drive C. What's this about a "folder"? TreeSize can't seem to make up it's mind how big C is.

Ranger4 · 03 Nov 2017

Is your hard Drive partitioned, if so the partition with the Windows operating system might be the 91.4 Gb & it might be nearly full.

Could you please supply a screen shot of Disc Management. To do that follow this Forum tutorial.

Disk Management - Post a Screen Capture Image - Windows 7 Help Forums

Dramx · 03 Nov 2017

Nope. Not partitioned. The OS says disk C: is "4.60GB free of 287 GB".

See capture attached.

Ranger4 · 03 Nov 2017

Thanks for that screen shot, but you did not include the full width of window to show the percentage free etc.

When you used Tree Size did you click on the little arrows on the side to expand the folder to show the sub folders. Like I have shown in these screen shots.

Click on each of those arrows where the folder size is fairly large.

If you use Hibernate it will take up a lot of disc space & check the size of the Page file. Also check to see if you have a lot of Restore Points as these can occupy a lot of space if you have a lot of them.

Dramx · 04 Nov 2017

OK, see attached. Are we really getting any closer to a solution here? I don't see any evidence for large (200GB-ish) blocks of disk usage.

Ranger4 · 04 Nov 2017

Why isn't your HP C: Drive being shown in Disc Management. All that is showing is Disc 5 with 300 Mb & another partition called Backup G. This drive also appears to be a UEFI system installation, whereas as your main system looks like it's the usual Legacy MBR installation.

The HP C: Drive is mentioned in the specs at the top but is not listed in the lower section. We need to see that to see what is happening there.

Dramx · 04 Nov 2017

Disk C is listed in the management panel. It's right there, showing 287.08GB. But the snip didn't scroll down and get all the drives at the bottom. I removed the G drive, and this Disk Management pane now shows everything. Disc 0 (C) is the boot drive, and the issue is that it SAYS it's almost full. As you can see from the TreeSize, it really only has ~90GB of stuff on it. Something unidentified is sucking up 200GB of disk space!