How to Find Lost Files on Hard Drive
- Home
- Windows
- Windows 10
Ok, Spiceheads, I'm stumped...
There's a desktop system here that shows the C drive is almost full. (500Gig) I open, dig in, thinking there must be some programs or movies, or other data eating up the space. Nothing. No movies, music, pics. No large files, other than Windows 10, Office, etc.
I've opened Program Files, Temp (empty), Windows, downloads. Nothing appears large or out of place. When I check the properties on the folders, everything is in the low kb or mb range.
What am I missing?
I've had the IE11 cache break (not sure how) and stuff over 100,000 files in that folder until the disk fills up. Good luck trying to delete them. The clear temporary folders option in IE wasn't able to see them and you couldn't remove them even through safe mode. I wound up booting a LiveCD and deleting them manually. It took almost an hour! but that did the trick. The PC was way faster after. No way I would have found that as fast if I hadn't used Spacesniffer.
- ROM
- CPU
- RAM
- GPU
63 Replies
I would use an application called windirstat, it will show all the hidden files and items that might be filling up the drive such as hiberfil.sys.
What does Disk Management say about the drive? Partitions? Have you run a utility like WinDirStat on the drive?
Try something like Space Sniffer to get a good visual.
Another +1 for WinDirStat and SpaceSniffer. Personally I prefer the nice blocks of Spacesniffer, be sure to run as admin or you'll get a bunch of errors as it tries to access system files in C.
AppData folder is always worth a check.
TempFiles from updates?
I would also recommend WinDirStat or even TreeSize... they will show you what directories are taking up space quickly.
+1 to space sniffer, like the interface a lot better, be sure to run as admin
Will definitely run a visualizer next, thanks!
I also like to check out CCleaner and see if it finds a large amount of files (Like Temp files) that are filling up the HD. Also, check your downloads folder.
Also check your pagefile. I have a few systems with the auto pagefile using 40+ GB.
Great suggestion, and one I hadn't considered since I haven't thought much about pagefiles since the world switched to SSDs.thomasrhyndress wrote:
Also check your pagefile. I have a few systems with the auto pagefile using 40+ GB.
CCleaner is great too, can def help find some rogue data eating space.
Also check the C:\Windows\Logs\CBS folder. These log files can eat Gigabytes per day
I use JDiskReport.....love it!
Show's you a Top 50 in the folder you are in...
Assuming that you've set your folder options to show hidden and system files, I would use something like the apps mentioned. I've used TreeSize Free as an admin to find large files and folders containing lots of files when a normal check didn't show them.
You could always run a disk cleanup on C:/, don't forget to click the system file box, this is where that pesky 'windows.old' file may be situated. Please remember if this is deleted there is 'no way back' from any OS update you may have performed.
To add to the chorus, definitely WinDirStat. Shows pretty blocks showing large files.
The pagefile.sys and hiberfil.sys will definitely be LARGE files in the root of C:
- If that doesn't show anything useful, try running CCleaner.
Also check if Volume Shadow Copies are enabled.
- Open file explorer, Right Click on C:\ and click Properties. Check the Shadow Copies tab. Go through old Shadow Copies and delete anything over a week.
- While you're in that dialogue, click the General Tab and run Disk Cleanup. (I know you've run CCleaner but this may pickup different stuff than CCleaner).
- Then on the Tools tab and run a disk check, then Optimise and Defrag.
download Treesize.
It will give you a breakdown of everything.
https://www.jam-software.com/treesize_free/
+1 for treesize, I have used the free portable version a few times to gain insight into where my free space is being eaten up.
Something else to check is if Hibernate is enabled, c:\hyberfil.sys is the size of how much system memory (RAM) you have installed. No reason to have hibernate enabled and taking up all that space (on a desktop no less)
Also check C:\Users\<username>\appdata\local\temp as that directory can sometimes get out of control. I have had a couple of AutoCAD users that had a couple hundred gigabytes of space wasted to an insane number of *.bak files that AutoCAD dumped there.
FEI is an IT service provider.
Check the C:\windows\temp folder. I see it all the time
This topic has been locked by an administrator and is no longer open for commenting.
To continue this discussion, please ask a new question.
How to Find Lost Files on Hard Drive
Source: https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/2027149-hard-drive-says-it-s-full-but-i-can-t-find-files-that-large-what-am-i-missing
0 Response to "How to Find Lost Files on Hard Drive"
Post a Comment