My D drive says it's full and contains files I can't see

[Chantaladrienne]

Hi

I recently wiped my computer and installed windows 7 (home premium 64 bit). Almost all the work I do is directly onto an external drive and very little is saved onto the internal hard drive.

Suddenly last week a message said it could not perform its weekly back up as their was insufficient disc space. My D drive shows 230GB is used with only a few GB free.

I have found one file in a Windows Image Backup file on that drive which accounts for 50 GB but all the other files on the drive are under 100 KB.

Does anyone have any ideas?

Chantal

 

[Golden]

Hi Chantal,

Can you please post a screen capture image of your maximised Disk Management screen?

Click the Start Orb, and in the search box, type disk management. Click on Create and format hard disk partitions. You should see the image similar to that shown below.

Regards,
Golden

 

[Chantaladrienne]

Thanks for such a quick reply. Here you go. I hope this helps

Chantal

 

[Golden]

Hi,

OK. In Windows Explorer, do the following:

1. Click Tools, then Folder options.
2. Click the View tab
3. Make sure the option Show hidden files, folder and drives is checked, as shown below.
4. Click Apply, then click OK.
5. Close Explorer, and then re-open it.

Now browse your D: and check to see if you find any large files.

Regards,
Golden

 

[Chantaladrienne]

Hi

I already did this. There are 26 files, all 1 gb or under, plus the Windows Image Backup file which contains one 61 GB file and a few much smaller ones.

 

[Golden]

Hi,

OK. Lets try something different. Can you please download and install WinDirStat. Run it and see if it can help point to the large (invisible?) file/s.

WinDirStat - Permalinks to downloads and other content

Regards,
Golden

 

[lehnerus2000]

How many backup files does Windows "Backup and Restore" show on that disc?

 

[Chantaladrienne]

Ok. Have done and this is what it shows. Is it holding onto to previous back-ups and is that what is taking up the the space?

 

[Golden]

Hi,

Yes, but also I see the .ZIP files hold the greatest proportion of space. What are those? Are they related to the backups?

Regards,
Golden

 

[Chantaladrienne]

Yes, it looks like all the backup files in the Chantal PC section are made up of zip files

 

[Golden]

Hi,

In that case, you will want to delete the older backups to make some space available.

Regards,
Golden

 

[Chantaladrienne]

I have to go out for a few hours now.

Thanks for the help.

Is it alright to delete the old back up files? I have now cancelled the windows back up and will back up onto an external drive from now on.

Chantal

 

[Golden]

Hi,

No worries. Yes, you can delete some of the older backup files to regain some space.

Post back if you need more help with this or other aspects of backing up etc. We have a very knowledgeable team here at SevenForums that can help you.

Regards,
Golden

 

[Chantaladrienne]

Thank you so much.

Enjoy the rest of your w/e. I bet it's considerably warmer where you are than here in London!

Chantal

 

[Golden]

Thanks. Actually its quite cold here 17 degrees at the moment..haha

 

[Boginja]

Dear Golden,
I ma not sure that you will see this reply, but I must try. My problem is that when I check disk space on C partion in windows it shows that only 4,40 GB is free of 58,4 GB. I checked everything, but I cant files which are big enough to fulfill this space. That I saw your advice here and installed WinDirStat. Picture is attached. I don't you have any other suggestion what is the problem and do you know how I can find files which are responsible for fulfilling my hard drive?

 

[bigmck]

The thread you just posted to if from 2012. Start a new thread to get better help.