Solved SSD space is disappearing. Troublshooted almost everything already.

[A Guy]

OK, 2 things to try, you can undo them if they don't uncover something.

Click to Show Hidden Files, Folders, and Drives, and unclick To Show Protected Operating System Files

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/394-hidden-files-folders-show-hide.html

Now what do the Sniffers show?

A Guy

 

[SNsCPU]

OK, 2 things to try, you can undo them if they don't uncover something.

Click to Show Hidden Files, Folders, and Drives, and unclick To Show Protected Operating System Files

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/394-hidden-files-folders-show-hide.html

Now what do the Sniffers show?

A Guy

I believe these disk storage programs take in to account all hidden and system files already regardless if they are hidden.

Anywho, I showed hidden folders as well as system files and the programs show the same things.

 

[A Guy]

I believe windows does, but was unsure of the 3rd party programs. As I don't have hibernation turned on, I couldn't confirm. The hiberfil.sys and Recycler files are the most likely suspect for losing space. I'd suggest turning off hibernation to see if that makes the difference, once again, you can always turn it back on with no ill affects.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/819-hibernate-enable-disable.html

Sorry if it seems I am jumping you through hoops, but if the usual things don't work, it is a real puzzler.

A Guy

P.S. Does space sniffer show the hiberfil.sys file? Perhaps a full screen shot of just SS would be helpful.

 

[SNsCPU]

I believe windows does, but was unsure of the 3rd party programs. As I don't have hibernation turned on, I couldn't confirm. The hiberfil.sys and Recycler files are the most likely suspect for losing space. I'd suggest turning off hibernation to see if that makes the difference, once again, you can always turn it back on with no ill affects.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/819-hibernate-enable-disable.html

Sorry if it seems I am jumping you through hoops, but if the usual things don't work, it is a real puzzler.

A Guy

P.S. Does space sniffer show the hiberfil.sys file? Perhaps a full screen shot of just SS would be helpful.

Yes, Treesize File, Windirstat, and Sniffer all show the pagefile and hiberfil system files. You can actually "see" it in my SS from my previous post. For Treesize File and Windirstat, the system files are listed under "Files" and the large blue boxes you see on Sniffer behind these two programs are the pagefile and hiberfil system files.

Hibernation on my computer was already set to OFF as the default setting of my power plan setting. However, Hybrid Sleep was set to ON though and I turned that setting OFF.

No worries, I really appreciate all the help you've been providing! This is just very frustrating as all of these computer gurus haven't been able to figure out what's going on. It really is a puzzler! One of them just gave up and suggested I call the manufacturer to see if this is a known issue for this particular SSD. My google search didn't really find anything though.

 

[A Guy]

I have asked the Gurus for more eyes. If Hibernation is disabled, there should be no hiberfil.sys file. Unless there is a backup program writing files that are somehow hidden from windows, it is a puzzle. Hang in there, someone else with new ideas will be along. I'm not abandoning you

A Guy

P.S. Would still like to see a full windows shot of Space Sniffer only

 

[SNsCPU]

I have asked the Gurus for more eyes. If Hibernation is disabled, there should be no hiberfil.sys file. Unless there is a backup program writing files that are somehow hidden from windows, it is a puzzle. Hang in there, someone else with new ideas will be along. I'm not abandoning you

A Guy

In the aforementioned link you gave me in your previous post regarding "enabling/disabling hibernation", there is an option to DISABLE hibernation which removes the hiberfil file completely OR simply turning hibernation off. I simply have it turned off as you specified in your post, NOT disabled.

I really appreciate the help from you and those you are seeking help from!

Edit: didn't catch your edit, I'll def post a SS for you.

Edit x2: Here are the SS's. The first SS is WIHTOUT free space being shown and the 2nd SS is WITH the free space being shown.

 

[A Guy]

You could disable hibernation, which would remove the hiberfil.sys file. But I suspect that will just lower the amount of used space reported, and not increase the free space, based on your current information. Might be worth a try though, as you can re-enable it and it will recreate the file. A Guy

 

[scrooge]

when you disabled hibernation did you restart your system to stop the hibernation ?
if not try that and it should be gone..

scrooge

 

[SNsCPU]

You could disable hibernation, which would remove the hiberfil.sys file. But I suspect that will just lower the amount of used space reported, and not increase the free space, based on your current information. Might be worth a try though, as you can re-enable it and it will recreate the file. A Guy

I've disabled hibernation, thus removing the hiberfil system file. This INCREASED my FREE space available and DECREASED my USED space according to Sniffer.

Again, these two numbers added together from Sniffer equal 44.6GB-- the same as before; this is clearly not the total capacity of my drive. I imagine this gave me a little more life, but over time my free space will continue to disappear!

 

[A Guy]

As I suspected, it only showed the difference of the hibernation file, not explain the difference in total space. You don't have any backup programs running do you? Any kind of recovery, backup?

A Guy

P.S. Thanks for the screen shots, very helpful to confirm there is some hidden space missing somehow, and increasing in size.

 

[SNsCPU]

As I suspected, it only showed the difference of the hibernation file, not explain the difference in total space. You don't have any backup programs running do you? Any kind of recovery, backup?

A Guy

P.S. Thanks for the screen shots, very helpful to confirm there is some hidden space missing somehow, and increasing in size.

No backup programs running at all. No recovery or backup being done.

When I built this new computer rig two months ago, the only big things I remember installing on this SSD were the following:

-Windows 7
-MS Office
-misc small programs such as Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, AIM, Avast antivirus etc.
-Adobe Creative Suite (this was eventually uninstalled and moved to my other drive to free up some space since it was disappearing)

Other than this, nothing else was changed, unless Windows 7 by default has some backup program that runs in the background? Again, this system is only two months old, so it hasn't been around the block long enough for there to have been some freak program installed from years back that I may have forgotten. It truly is a clean drive with minimal wear and tear and very few programs installed.

I definitely concur with this statement though!:

P.S. Thanks for the screen shots, very helpful to confirm there is some hidden space missing somehow, and increasing in size

This "hidden space" that keeps increasing in size is what has constantly been increasing and eating up my drive capacity since I first noticed this phenomenom about a month ago.

 

[marsmimar]

Hello Steven and welcome to Seven Forums. My usual disclaimer: I'm not an expert at anything.

Just out of curiosity, how much space do you have set aside for the recycle bin and what happens to your available free space if you set it to 0%? Right click on recycle bin desktop icon > Properties. (If there's anything in the recyle bin that you might want to keep I'd suggest you save it before changing it to 0%.)

 

[SNsCPU]

Hello Steven and welcome to Seven Forums. My usual disclaimer: I'm not an expert at anything.

Just out of curiosity, how much space do you have set aside for the recycle bin and what happens to your available free space if you set it to 0%? Right click on recycle bin desktop icon > Properties. (If there's anything in the recyle bin that you might want to keep I'd suggest you save it before changing it to 0%.)

I'm probably too illiterate on these matters to have known if you're an expert or not anyway .

Currently it's set to 5100 MB.

When I set it to 0, no immediately changes appear with any of the disk space.

 

[marsmimar]

Sorry, I forgot to mention you should reboot after changing the recycle bin's reserved space. (Told you I'm not an expert in anything.)

 

[SNsCPU]

Sorry, I forgot to mention you should reboot after changing the recycle bin's reserved space. (Told you I'm not an expert in anything.)

Done. No affect.

 

[profdlp]

Until I read this...

...No backup programs running at all. No recovery or backup being done...

...I thought you had a "Safe Mirror" problem going on:

http://www.sevenforums.com/general-discussion/140838-syswow64-safe-mirror.html

I'm posting this because it wouldn't hurt to check it anyway. (You may have to enable "View Hidden files and Folders" and "View Protected Operating System Files" in order to see it.)

Safe Mirror is used when you are using a differential backup program to maintain folder syncing. When you delete a file in the backup folder it also gets deleted in the source folder. To protect you in case of a goof it stashes a copy in the path mentioned in the first post of the thread above. I was merrily sorting out stuff in my backup thinking I was deleting things I didn't want any more and it was all piling up in the "C:\Windows\SysWOW64\config\systemprofile\AppData\Local\Safe mirror" folder.

Like I said, it wouldn't hurt to look.

 

[SNsCPU]

Until I read this...

...No backup programs running at all. No recovery or backup being done...

...I thought you had a "Safe Mirror" problem going on:

http://www.sevenforums.com/general-discussion/140838-syswow64-safe-mirror.html

I'm posting this because it wouldn't hurt to check it anyway. (You may have to enable "View Hidden files and Folders" and "View Protected Operating System Files" in order to see it.)

Safe Mirror is used when you are using a differential backup program to maintain folder syncing. When you delete a file in the backup folder it also gets deleted in the source folder. To protect you in case of a goof it stashes a copy in the path mentioned in the first post of the thread above. I was merrily sorting out stuff in my backup thinking I was deleting things I didn't want any more and it was all piling up in the "C:\Windows\SysWOW64\config\systemprofile\AppData\Local\Safe mirror" folder.

Like I said, it wouldn't hurt to look.

Went all the way down to AppData\Local... No safe mirror folder exists.

Thanks to everyone who are trying to help! I really appreciate it.

 

[profdlp]

Try running Revo Uninstaller Free and see what the various built-in cleaners come up with. While I trust Revo (it's one of the few programs with a robust free version for which I was willing to pay for the "pro" version), be cautious with what it deletes. For right now, safest would be to just do the scans and check the file sizes for the stuff it finds - it may provide a lead on where your space is going.

 

[SNsCPU]

Try running Revo Uninstaller Free and see what the various built-in cleaners come up with. While I trust Revo (it's one of the few programs with a robust free version for which I was willing to pay for the "pro" version), be cautious with what it deletes. For right now, safest would be to just do the scans and check the file sizes for the stuff it finds - it may provide a lead on where your space is going.

Finished installing it, but having a hard time finding any scanning options. For the various cleaners it has on the left navigation pane, they only provide options for cleaning and deleting the selected item-- nothing for scanning.

 

[profdlp]

I think they are rolled up into one under the "Junk Files Cleaner" in the free version.