Where has the 10gb in my C drive gone? Phantom files

[richc46]

I have seen this so many times. It is most likely shadow copies, which can be removed by doin the system file clean up. I will try to find something in Google with picutres that may help you find the disk cleanup.

 

[richc46]

Delete files using Disk Cleanup

I find it hard to understand how the button is not there. I have HP and it is clearly there, I have used it.

 

[abhiroopb]

I have seen this so many times. It is most likely shadow copies, which can be removed by doin the system file clean up. I will try to find something in Google with picutres that may help you find the disk cleanup.

Delete files using Disk Cleanup

I find it hard to understand how the button is not there. I have HP and it is clearly there, I have used it.

I agree it is a little strange that the button is not there. Could it be that because I have cleaned up the system files using CCleaner it is just not shown?

Are Shadow Copies the same as "system restore"? If so, I have cleaned these out already.

 

[richc46]

No, Ccleaner should not cause that problem.

 

[abhiroopb]

No, Ccleaner should not cause that problem.

Thanks, no point going on over this until I can go home (in about 12 hours) and confirming this.

As an aside, I assume this tool would delete all system files in the C:\ drive. So, the 41GB should be reduced. Is this correct?

If so, that would still not tackle my overall problem, with regard to the 6GB that I cannot find.

 

[whs]

Thanks but as I mentioned I already know that 41GB is being taken up by my Windows, Program Files and other related folders in C:\.

How did you find out about the 41GB. Just curious.

 

[richc46]

Hopefully this will clear the shadow copies, but not the restore points.

In cmd prompt

vssadmin /delete

Hopefully, nothing else will be affected.

​

 

[abhiroopb]

Thanks but as I mentioned I already know that 41GB is being taken up by my Windows, Program Files and other related folders in C:\.

How did you find out about the 41GB. Just curious.

Went to C:\, set the preferences to "show" hidden files and folders, selected everything and hit properties. This gave me the 41GB value.

From what I can tell, the Windows folder takes up 14GB and Program Files takes up the rest (I know two of my games takes up about 25GB).

 

[abhiroopb]

Hopefully this will clear the shadow copies, but not the restore points.

In cmd prompt

vssadmin /delete

Hopefully, nothing else will be affected.

​

Thanks, will try when I get home. What are shadow copies (if not restore points)?

 

[whs]

Thanks but as I mentioned I already know that 41GB is being taken up by my Windows, Program Files and other related folders in C:\.

How did you find out about the 41GB. Just curious.

Went to C:\, set the preferences to "show" hidden files and folders, selected everything and hit properties. This gave me the 41GB value.

From what I can tell, the Windows folder takes up 14GB and Program Files takes up the rest (I know two of my games takes up about 25GB).

This is definitely not the way to do it. Run WinDirStat and you may be surprised.

 

[abhiroopb]

This is definitely not the way to do it. Run WinDirStat and you may be surprised.

Thanks for the advice, but any concrete reason as to why this would not show me the total space being used? I mean I just need the single figure I don't really need the breakdown. I'm not doubting and I appreciate the advice, but I just don't see how this could help me figure out where the space is going.

In any case I think I may have figured out what I am doing wrong. I think I have the "hide protected operating system files" option is enabled and so I cannot see the pagefile.sys file. I will disable this option and see what the space usage is like.

 

[Dragonfly]

TreeSize Free should allow you to drill down and find that missing 10GB.

How will that help exactly? As I said my main problem is that there appears to be about 6-8gb that I can't seem to find. I have already found that Windows + Program Files + folders in C:\ are using about 41GB. There aren't any more folders/files that I can find. I assume the programme you mentioned would show me how much space each folder/file was taking. I don't really want to know specifically what is making up the 41GB, rather I'd like to know where the remaining 6GB is. Thanks

TreeSize will show all the used and unused space on your C drive (or any other drive) and what is using the space, which I believe is what you want to know. It's free, it's quick - no need to assume what it will or won't do.

 

[whs]

This is definitely not the way to do it. Run WinDirStat and you may be surprised.

Thanks for the advice, but any concrete reason as to why this would not show me the total space being used? I mean I just need the single figure I don't really need the breakdown. I'm not doubting and I appreciate the advice, but I just don't see how this could help me figure out where the space is going.

In any case I think I may have figured out what I am doing wrong. I think I have the "hide protected operating system files" option is enabled and so I cannot see the pagefile.sys file. I will disable this option and see what the space usage is like.

Sorry, but I give up. You seem to know better.

 

[abhiroopb]

Apologies for not getting back to this thread sooner.

The fix was simple. I disabled hibernate and I immediately freed up the "phantom" space.

Thanks for all the suggestions!

 

[Olpol]

Hi there,

I realise this thread is quite old, but I'm having the same problem.
I have a 120GB SSD which shows up as 111GB in Windows 7 x64. (I understand those differences)
I have enabled show hidden files and I have selected all folders in my C drive and they take up 91.3 GB.
However Windows says I only have 9.43 GB free.
This means it thinks (111-9.46 GB =) 101.54 GB is being used.
So there is a difference of 10.24 GB unaccounted for.

I have tried a few suggestions in this thread such as:
System restore is only taking up 200MB and has a maximum allowance of approx one GB.
Disk cleanup, including system files will only clear up about 600 MB.
The cmd "vssadmin list shadowstorage" lists less than 1GB too.

I can't think of anything else that could be sneakily taking up 10GB.
Has anyone else got further suggestions?

Thanks!

 

[Golden]

Olpol,

Do you have a file called hiberfile.sys? This is used if you put the system in hibernation.

Regards,
Golden

 

[Olpol]

In my power options I run my PC on maximum performance and have hibernate: never. I did a search in the C drive for that file name though, and nothing came up.

 

[gregrocker]

Run CCleaner to see how much it will clean up. May be a lot of temp files.

 

[Olpol]

I've checked the temp files folder and the windows disk cleanup options and they are quite small. It also carries over, regardless of rebooting so would that still be possible to be temp files? I guess I can try that program if it's got any benefits over doing it via windows' standard programs.

 

[gregrocker]

CCleaner is more thorough.

You can see what is using HD space in a graphical map using WinDirStat - Download.com