Windows XP forum: Whats eating up my hard drive space?

We had this problem with my daughter's laptop with an 80GB hard drive that showed it held 83GB of data (NOT a typo). I'm good at computer maintainence (cleared the cache, temp files, dumped and erased my recycle bin, ran registry and system mechanic programs, uninstalled programs, burned music, photos, and documents to DVDs and then deleted them from the computer freeing over 38GB of space). The next day the drive was 102% full again.

The problem turned out to be McAfee creating safety files over and over without deleting the older, unneeded file copies. I did a search for files over 1GB in size and found a file with 45GB. After clearing out all of that file's contents and resetting McAfee's parameters the drive stays less than 60% full (even with the music and photos added back) and the computer runs like new. I've talked with others who have had this issue with Norton, AVG, and other anti-virus programs.

Three suggestions:
1) You deleted all those programs but perhaps you did not clear the recycle bin, which is also on C: drive
2) You may have deleted programs instead of using "Add/delete programs" in Control panel, which would leave a lot of program contents on your hard drive.
3) Your hard drive may not be configured properly

I would run this program called ccleaner http://www.ccleaner.com. Do a clean up of the drive under the Cleaner tab and you should discover a lot of lost disk space. I would defrag after this, also.

I had the same problem recently. After doing most of the things you have, I looked into my OracleXE database. Since I was no longer using this and could easily reinstall, I tried deleting it. The problem was resolved. I believe the problem manifested itself after I started powering my system down every night. I am assuming that Oracle was creating backup and recovery files, but I have not yet verified this. So perhaps you are running a database and/or powering down nightly and some application is saving it's state in rather large files. Give it some thought.

Not sure if this is the same but, I had an automatic backup scheduled that was eating my HD space... check to see if you have some old backup files you can delete & set your auto backup to manual.

Marie

You already took a bunch of good steps, only to find that your actions seem to have been countered by some space-grabbing fiend. If the space-grabbing happened rather quickly (within a day or two perhaps), I would start by suspecting some sort of malware.

Are your Windows patches and updates up to date? One virus I fought off at work stopped Windows and the company's antivirus program from updating themselves.

You said you ran virus and spyware scans. Just for grins, did you manually update the programs before you ran them? If you didnt, try that and run them again. Make sure they update.

Another good action is to run the free online scan from Trend Micro (find it at:
http://housecall.trendmicro.com/apac/
One advantage of Trend Micros scan is that it will try to remove what it finds after the scan. Another is that it will identify some Windows updates that you might be lacking.

Now lets assume the scans all show up negative, and you need a new direction. Lets see whether too much space is being reserved for things you dont need to save. There are two areas I would look at.

The first is your Internet cache. If you are using Internet Explorer, click on Tools | Internet Options. Here the steps get a little different depending on which version youre using, but somewhere on the General tab should be a Settings button that leads to a place where you can adjust the size of your Internet cache. Knock it down to 50 or 100 MB, especially if its set a lot larger than that.

Step two is to right click on the Recycle Bin icon and click on Properties. On the Global tab is a slider bar that adjusts how much disk space is available for recycling. Make sure its no more than 5%.

Still got a problem? Here are a couple free utility programs that include several components (including some temporary file finders that are pretty aggressive and registry cleaners that seem pretty good) One, called Advanced SystemCare, is at:
http://www.iobit.com/advancedwindowscareper.html
And the other, Glary Utilities, is at:
http://www.download.com/Glary-Utilities/3000-2094_4-10508531.html
Running those two utilities should speed up your system a smidge as well as identifying more potential problems and space-wasting temporary files.

Good hunting!

I tried to defrag my hard drive but it would not do that. It did start and after a few minutes, I get the message that the following files can't be defraged. Then I ran the analysis again - the message is that I MUST defrag the volume C:\. I wonder how can I defrag when it will not run the whole process. Thanks.

One thing you mite try is to stop hibernation, then defrag the hard drive. as hibernation will save to the hard drive each time, and the file is not removed until it is turned off.

I would hope to think that by the time we got to 91 posts that we would start to see "I had a similar problem. I tried the suggestions in posts 5, 8 and 15, and everything is back to normal." or, "tried everything suggested still no change."

Instead we still get pleas for help.

Does anybody ever read the responses?

replying to brunodc post 1/10/09:

I tried brunodc's advice for recovering disk space by reducing the System Restore space reservation from what was evidently the default 12% to 5%, I suddenly had about 7-8GB more space and my system is running like new again (I had some serious resource depletion problems). But I stumbled onto an easier way, please tell me if this is risky:

1 - right-click on My Computer, select Properties.
2 - Select System Restore tab, in Disk Space Usage area move slider from 12% to 5%, click Apply.

I saw the liberated space immediately become available, did the system automatically delete the oldest restore files? I never use this feature but would like it to be there when I need it.

Thanks brunodc
- bills

I was having the same problem on my XP-PRO system. The more programs I removed, or system changes I made to regain drive space, the faster I ran out of disc space. I discovered that just about every change resulted in the system setting a "restore point", and any gains were only temporary. I finally checked the "system volume information" folder and found that there dozens of folders in the "restore{006A00-..} folder (where windows stores all of those "restore points") each between 45 - 90MB. The more stuff I had on the hard drive, the larger the RP folder. I moved most of the folders to one of my network drives and instantly gained nearly 2GB of space on my 10GB partition. Note that on some days there as many as 3-4 RP's set, coinciding apparently with the number and frequency of WIN-xp auto-updates or other plug-ins, sys maint actions, etc. It's not a cure, but it helps.

One of the key questions here is how big is your whole hard drive? And are you using the D: partition and if so, for what? For example, for a few years, Sony was partitioning many of their computers with a small C partition and a good size D partition and many users where not even aware of it or where not even using the D partition at all. Many ran out of space on C very quickly. If this is your problem you can use a program such as Acronis Disk Director to repartition your drives to take away some space from D and give you more space on C. This process can be done without losing any of your current data. Another option is to move the contents of My Documents to the D: Partition. You can do this by right clicking on MY DOCUMENTS > Select Properties > Click on MOVE to redirect it to the D partition. You could also redirect your swap file to the D partition as well other large files such as your Outlook PST file, if you use Outlook.

If both your C and D partitions are both almost full then your best option is to replace the hard drive with a new, larger drive. Chances are if you only have a 20g partition on C then I would guess that your computer is probably over 3 or 4 years old and could use a new drive anyway. Hard drives are like tires on a car, and should be replaced periodically anyway. Spinning at several thousand revolutions per minute, hard drives wear out over time.

If replacing the hard drive is not in the cards for you then here are some things you can do to free up space (after you have BACKED UP all of your data of course):

1. Security Software - First I would like to say that you are perfectly fine using Avast, Defender and Spybot. Unless you want to make things worse, I would NOT recommend that you switch to Norton or McAfee. Zone Alarm has been known to cause some problems, so you might want to consider Comodo firewall. But if you want to stick with Zone Alarm, you should at least uninstall and reinstall it to make sure it is behaving properly.

2. Check Disk For Errors One of the first things you will want to do is check the hard drive for errors. Double Click on My Computer and Right Click on your C drive, Select PROPERTIES, click on the Tools Tab. In the Error Checking Section click on CHECK NOW, Place Check marks in both boxes and click on START. You will receive and error message, so click on YES and reboot your computer to start the process. NOTE: this can take a long time to run depending on the size of your drive and its condition (>1 hour).

3. File Cleaner Download CCleaner from www.download.com and run that to clean up all your temporary files. Dont forget to empty your recycle bin.

4. Uninstall Unused Programs Use Add/Remove Programs to uninstall any junk, trial or unused programs that you may have on your computer. Many computers come with free trial and other junk programs that you probably have never used. Uninstall any programs that you do not use. If you are not absolutely sure of something, you are best off leaving them installed.

5. Reduce System Restore Size Windows System Restore can take up as much as 12% of your hard drive space. You can adjust this size by Right Clicking on MY COMPUTER and Selecting PROPERTIES and then click on the SYSTEM RESTORE tab. Click on SETTINGS and move the slider to about 5%. Keep in mind that this will reduce the number of System Restore points you will have available to you.

6. Search for Large Files Sometimes you can spot unusually large, forgotten or even some duplicate files that you do not need by performing a general search for files over a specific size. Click on START and Select SEARCH. Select All FILES AND FOLDERS. Leave the search box empty and Select change the Search In box to your C drive. Next select the What SIZE is it and check off SPECIFY SIZE and then select AT LEAST and enter something like 20,000 (20meg). Now click on MORE OPTIONS and Place a check mark in every box except Case Sensitive. Now Click on SEARCH. This will now start displaying all the files on your C drive that are over 20mb. Look through the list and see if you can find any obvious files to delete. Sometimes you will find a few large video files that you totally forgot you had. Again it is best to leave any files that you are not absolutely sure about. You can change the minimum file size to anything you want and search again but the smaller the number the more files you will get back. Dont forget to keep emptying the recycle bin after deleting files.

7. Reinstall some Programs onto the D: partition If needed, you can uninstall some of the programs that you do use and reinstall them onto your D: partition (assuming you have extra space on D:). Programs install themselves on the C drive by default, but during the install process you can usually change the default location and redirect the installation to your D partition instead.


When a drive partition has been running low on free space for a while it usually becomes very fragmented, so you really want to run the disk defragmenter. If you still do not have enough free space to run defrag, you might want to try another brand of disk defragmenter such as Smart Defrag from Iobit.com. Or you could temporarily shut down your swap file and system restore to give you enough free space and then turn them back on after the defrag.

Good Luck and Happy Holidays!

Dana
Wayland Computer

Comodo now seems to force you to install an entire security suite for free, rather than just its free Firewall. The antivirus has done very poorly in tests, and is not yet certified. Just a note.

Check to see how much space is taken up by Windows Installer files (.msi).

20 Gb on a drive is not out of the ordinary!

If you do a search you will find a release by Microsoft on their Support Website of a file to deal with this problem.

The file is called msicuu2.exe

GOODDAY!
I BELIEVE THAT I MAY HAVE FOUND THE PLACE WHERE YOU LOOSE THE FREE-SPACE WHICH YOU REFER TO.....
I ALSO HAD NOTICED THAT THE FREE-SPACE ON MY PCs KEPT GETTING SMALLER & SMALLER, EVEN ON PCs WHICH I SELDOM USED FOR WEB-SURFING OR ANYTHING ELSE THAT WAS EXPECTED TO USE-UP FREE-SPACE!! I'D ALSO NOTICE THAT EVERY-SO-OFTEN, I'D MYSTERIOUSLY GET BACK A LOT OF THE MISSING SPACE!!!
SO I STARTED KEEPING CLOSE (HOURLY) WATCH & NOTES OF MY FREE-SPACE ON ALL MY PCs... AND WHENEVER I NOTICED A DROP OR GAIN OF MORE THAN 2MB OF FREE-SPACE, I WOULD THEN reSET THE PC'S CLOCK FORWARD 23-HOURS AND THEN RUN A SEARCH (ON THE PC) FOR ANY NEW OR MODIFIED 'Files or Folders' DURRING THE PAST 24-HOURS. DOING THAT WOULD OFTEN FIND A MYSTERY-FILE & IT'S FOLDER!
SO I SUGGEST THAT EVERYONE DO THE SAME, TO FIND WHERE YOUR FREE-SPACE IS GETTING TAKEN-UP!
I'VE FOUND THAT THE MAIN REASON FOR THE CHANGING FREE-SPACE WAS DUE TO A MYSTERY-FOLDER CALLED 'DrWatson', WHICH IS FOUND ON THE C-DRIVE OF MANY OF MY WINDOWS PCs.
SO I ALSO SUGGEST THAT EVERYONE CHECK THEIR PC FOR THAT FOLDER...
CLICK ON: 'My Computer', THEN NEXT: 'C', NEXT: 'Documents and Settings', NEXT: 'All Users', NEXT: 'Documents'... IN THIS LAST FOLDER, YOU MAY FIND THE MYSTERY-FOLDER CALLED 'DrWatson'... IN THAT FOLDER THERE IS ALWAYS A FILE CALLED 'user.dmp'... THAT FILE GROWS ALMOST CONSTANTLY AND SEEMS TO BE FILLED WITH ALMOST COMPLETE SPACE-WASTING DATA!
THEN AFTER IT REACHES 6 TO OVER 100MB, IT WILL SHRINK WAY BACK DOWN, FOR UNKNOWN REASONs.
IF YOU DO HAVE THAT FOLDER BUT DON'T SEE THE FILE, YOU SHOULD MAKE SURE THAT YOUR PC DISPLAYS ALL 'HIDDEN' FILES & FOLDERS, AS THE FILE WAS KEPT HIDDEN ON MOST OF MY PCs!
I SUSPECTED THE LARGE & CHANGING FILE TO BE SOME SORT OF SPY-WARE, SO I MOVED IT TO AN EXTERNAL HARD-DRIVE, (IN CASE IT WAS NEEDED).
I HAVE SINCE NEVER FOUND ANY CONSEQUENCE BY DELETING THAT OFTEN CHANGING FILE!
I'D REALLY LIKE TO KNOW WHERE THAT MYSTERY FOLDER & IT'S FILES COME FROM! SO IF THERE'S ANYONE OUT THERE WHO KNOWS ANYTHING ABOUT THAT FILE IN THE 'DrWatson' FOLDER, THEN PLEASE TELL WHAT YOU KNOW ABOUT IT!!!

WELL, THAT'S JUST THE 'OFFICIAL' STUFF CONCERNING IT. RIGHT?_RIGHT!