Solved what takes up 200 GB of space on my hard drive?

[chas53]

would someone please tell me how I can find out what is taking up so much space on my hard drive?

I have looked. I don't think I have any videos on it. (I make little music videos. so maybe this is the answer. I just dont know where they are on my C drive. I transfer everything over to my F drive. and then delete them off the C drive, but maybe they don't actually delete??)

really looking for ideas here. I don't have ton of programs. sony vegas, itunes, Reaper.

9 GB of music.

really just don't know whats taking up all the space.

any help greatly appreciated. thanks, Chas

 

[derekimo]

These will show you whats being used by what,

WinDirStat - Windows Directory Statistics

TreeSize Free - Quickly Scan Directory Sizes and Find Space Hogs

 

[chas53]

thank you very much derekimo.

I followed the first link. went to the first thing which was sourceforge.
clicked download. got a thing about 7 zip and a a question about adding iuni something or other. cicked yes. saw that it was going to install the yahoo toolbar, got a warning message from WOT web of trust saying I was at a bad site.

and got out of there.

any thoughts???

 

[derekimo]

thank you very much derekimo.

I'm thinking that I should get both of these?

You don't need both, they're just 2 different programs that do the same thing.

One is a little prettier than the other.

 

[MilesAhead]

If you have a 64 bit system I would try one of the native 64 bit disk usage utilities. I've been using WinDirStat for years. I use it on Windows Seven 32 bit. But when I search the disk usage tools I see no mention of folder redirection. That leads me to believe they aren't totally accurate on 64 bit systems. (When running a 32 bit app on Windows64 the Windows\System32 folder is redirected to Windows\SysWow64. Big deal you say. But if some malware is loading up the System32 folder with crap to take up disk space, you won't see it using a 32 bit utility.

Just search for Disk Usage 64 bit Windows native
and you'll find free ones.

 

[derekimo]

thank you very much derekimo.

I followed the first link. went to the first thing which was sourceforge.
clicked download. got a thing about 7 zip and a a question about adding iuni something or other. cicked yes. saw that it was going to install the yahoo toolbar, got a warning message from WOT web of trust saying I was at a bad site.

and got out of there.

any thoughts???

Not sure what happened there,

Here's the Windirstat installer, feel free to scan it.

 

[chas53]

If you have a 64 bit system I would try one of the native 64 bit disk usage utilities. I've been using WinDirStat for years. I use it on Windows Seven 32 bit. But when I search the disk usage tools I see no mention of folder redirection. That leads me to believe they aren't totally accurate on 64 bit systems. (When running a 32 bit app on Windows64 the Windows\System32 folder is redirected to Windows\SysWow64. Big deal you say. But if some malware is loading up the System32 folder with crap to take up disk space, you won't see it using a 32 bit utility.

Just search for Disk Usage 64 bit Windows native
and you'll find free ones.

thank you very much derekimo.

I followed the first link. went to the first thing which was sourceforge.
clicked download. got a thing about 7 zip and a a question about adding iuni something or other. cicked yes. saw that it was going to install the yahoo toolbar, got a warning message from WOT web of trust saying I was at a bad site.

and got out of there.

any thoughts???

Not sure what happened there,

Here's the Windirstat installer, feel free to scan it.

thank you, both of you guys. derekimo I am hesitant based on what MilesAhead is saying. do you have any thoughts?

 

[derekimo]

Windirstat will give you a pretty good idea what is taking up space, it works fine for me.



If you're worried about the space being malware, try malwarebytes free,

Malwarebytes : Malwarebytes Anti-Malware PRO removes malware including viruses, spyware, worms and trojans, plus it protects your computer

 

[chas53]

ok. thanks very much again derekimo.

 

[derekimo]

You're welcome.

 

[lehnerus2000]

Hidden Files and/or Backups?

Have you tried selecting "Show hidden files, folders and drives" and deselecting "Hide protected operating system files"?
Type "Folder options" in the "Start Menu" search box.

​

Is Windows "Backup and Restore" running?
Is it saving the backups to that drive?

I've never had any problems with SourceForge.

Have you used your AV program to check your machine (since you got that warning)?

 

[tman69]

you said in your original post...
"I have looked. I don't think I have any videos on it. (I make little music videos. so maybe this is the answer. I just dont know where they are on my C drive. I transfer everything over to my F drive. and then delete them off the C drive, but maybe they don't actually delete??)...really just don't know whats taking up all the space."

Chas, I don't know how knowledgeable you are-so-forgive me if I tell you things you may already know:
first--files do delete (sorta) but,actually move to the recycle bin and are still taking up HD space until you empty the recycle bin (and maybe defrag drive).
second--iTunes gives you a choice, when you add files, to 'copy' files or 'move' them--if you chose copy, then there are two copies of all your files on your HD one set is in iTunes, the other in the original location--additionally, iTunes converts files to the MAC format, which by default makes the files larger--mp3s are incredibly small compared to an AIFF file.

don't know if this helps--but that's a couple ideas on where to look, or how to look, for what 'may be' taking up HD space--it doesn't seem likely that 'running processes' would take up hard drive space (use memory and CPU cycles, but not Hard Drive space).

 

[chas53]

you guys are all so cool.

thank you for the awesome excellent help.

thanks to you all, I figured out how to look in a couple places. my sony video camera software is saving my videos in the pictures folder.

there was 36 GB of videos in there that I thought I had deleted.

thanks for the help everyone.

 

[derekimo]

You're welcome.

Mystery solved, glad to hear it.

 

[sILVERsTORM]

Windirstat will give you a pretty good idea what is taking up space, it works fine for me.

View attachment 226138

If you're worried about the space being malware, try malwarebytes free,

Malwarebytes : Malwarebytes Anti-Malware PRO removes malware including viruses, spyware, worms and trojans, plus it protects your computer

I may be late to the party but you saved my bacon here!!!

I did not understand why Windows 7 Ultimate was taking over 275 gig of space considering I've cleaned and moved most stuff to storage drives (music, downloads...)

Turned out that it was the auslogic adware program that too a whopping 150 GIG,
Many, many thanks for this wonderful software!!!

 

[RoWin7]

I have that program and it takes up only 81.5 MB. Were you saving thousands of quarantined files?

 

[sILVERsTORM]

I have that program and it takes up only 81.5 MB. Were you saving thousands of quarantined files?

If I was, I was unaware of it. Was just shocked to see that amount due to the malware soft

It was on my ssd which I use for operating systems (dual boot) The win 7 partition which I gave 300 GB allocation was almost full and I did not understood why and I usually clear quarantine items. It was a huge surprise lol