Solved No reason for HDD to be full

[EdLad]

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]

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]

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

 

[EdLad]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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.

 

[hchamaziz]

thank you for your thread

 

[TechnoMage2016]

A good friend of mine, who works for the XXX, sent me a great little program called "Temp File Cleaner".
I suspect it was written in Batch Language and then Compiled into an .exe file.

It goes through the entire HD, finding and deleting the temp files for all users, and it does it in just a few short seconds. For a daily cleanup, I've put that little program in my "Startup" folder.
I call that my FREE Daily Maid Service.

That prevents the senseless build up of temp files on my PC.

Another great way to clean out junk, is to run MS's Disk Cleanup. (It comes with every version of Windows) I run it in Extended Mode, to get rid of even more junk files. Extended mode is well documented on the web, how to set it up and how to run it.

Then for an In-Depth cleanup, weekly (not weakly) I run WinUtilities, to check for and remove junk files and to clean out the registry of temp and dead entries.
I really like keeping my PC(s) as squeaky clean as possible.

It's all do'able, and just requires a little bit of effort.

Cheers Mate!
TechnoMage

PS: I'm a working PC tech, and I hate to go to a computer that I've never seen before and be confronted with hundreds of thousands of temp files and Tracking Cookies.
My little "Temp File Cleaner" gets rid of the temp files and "Super Anti-Spyware FREE" will get rid of all the Tracking Cookies. Worse case, was one PC with over 15,000 tracking cookies on it. Yikes!