Hard Drive space mystery

XplosiveHamster · 14 Jul 2014 at 14:36

Saw a popup warning that my Hard drive on an old Samsung R720 laptop was close to full last week, after shimmying around a few files I freed up 2GB of new space yet received the same warning yesterday.

Deleted everything from my temp folder and recycle bin to free up a whopping 13GB of free space last night, but this morning it's already dropped to only 9GB free! :confused:

Note: using vista and normal programmes like firefox, itunes, dropbox etc

Any help would be amazing, it just seems like space is disappearing into thin air!

XplosiveHamster · 14 Jul 2014 at 14:37

Wasn't sure which sub-forum to ask this question, if it's in the wrong place and a mod wants to move it that would be great

KIA · 14 Jul 2014 at 14:48

https://windirstat.info/

Duke · 14 Jul 2014 at 14:49

Spacesniffer will tell you what is using up the space.

XplosiveHamster · 14 Jul 2014 at 14:51

Looks like a useful tool, is it best running it tonight and then running it again tomorrow to see where the disappearing space is going?

skyripper · 14 Jul 2014 at 15:04

I've used WinDirStat for years since I spotted its uber colourful output on a colleague screen and asked what it was.

Brilliant tool for drilling down into your directories to discover where all your disk space has disappeared to.

XplosiveHamster · 14 Jul 2014 at 15:14

Noted, will give it a go tonight and see what it comes back with

demonix · 14 Jul 2014 at 16:52

Have you cleared out all but the most recent restore points (that is if you have that option after you select clean system files or something like that in disc cleanup) as that might give you a few gigs back.

Destination · 14 Jul 2014 at 18:17

It is probably a combination of pagefile, hyperfil and system restores

Ewanb75 · 14 Jul 2014 at 22:38

I just had a quick run of WinDirStart and found a folder with a load of jpegs, and after a quick look online, seems to be a problem a lot of people have found.

Linky

Have a look in the folder and see whats there.

FatRakoon · 16 Jul 2014 at 16:45

Simple but effective if your PC is using it, is to kill of Hibernation.
The file itself is several gigs.

on a CLI

POWERCFG -H OFF

run under adminand you will be sorted by a few gigs.

linktoinsanity · 16 Jul 2014 at 17:14

Download Treesize Free and use that to see what is taking up the most space.

https://www.jam-software.de/custome...guage=EN&PHPSESSID=02ljeasnd30gmii3tuvatv1m93

KIA · 16 Jul 2014 at 20:52

FatRakoon said:
Simple but effective if your PC is using it, is to kill of Hibernation.
The file itself is several gigs.

on a CLI

POWERCFG -H OFF

run under adminand you will be sorted by a few gigs.

No more fastboot if you use this command on Windows 8.