Solved Huge amount of mystery space taken up on Hard Drive

[bazmnaz]

PROBLEM SOLVED!

Firstly I discovering that the problem in hand was located at:

C:\Windows\SysWOW64\config\systemprofile\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5\

I found this by using WizTree.
Available here: Antibody Software - WizTree finds the files and folders using the most disk space on your hard drive)

I was unable to access this location via explorer, it would always freeze up. So I am using CCleaner to clear out this folder "Content.IE5". In CCleaner I added a custom folder to clean by navigating to:
Options > Include > Add ... then pasting that location into the 'Drive or Folder' area.

CCleaner is available here: https://www.piriform.com/ccleaner/download ...(I downloaded the free version)

Now CCleaner is slooooowly clearing out this folder and I am slooowly getting my space back. As I am writing this, it has cleaned about 10GB in 1-2 hours. There is approx. 500GB to clean. It is going to take a while, but at least I've found a solution to the problem. Maybe if you find a more convenient way of deleting this folder you can let me know. But for now this is the way I am doing it.

Thanks to everyone who helped out

EDIT: Thought I'd post this edit to let you all know how long it took to clear. For memory, I think it took around 5-7 days to clear through it all. Pretty sure there was a solid 400GB or so of files (junk) in the specified folder above. Had to restart a few times (CCleaner started from where it was up to before restart).

 

[jumanji]

Good going and well done. Thanks for sharing all the info especially adding a custom folder to clean in CCleaner.

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Hmm didn't see this thread until today an would have suggested WizTree - shame is I should have found it before I wrecked the drive in my other laptop and perhaps I would not have done.

So it is on all my machines now and the GUI is much easier to use than WinDirStat.