C drive nearly full, why?

Win 11, Version 21H2 (OS Build 22000.556.
My C drive (SSD) has a capacity of 475Gb and apparently only 36.8Gb of free space. This suggests that about 440Gb is taken up by programs, operating system and other files.
I have checked the file size of every folder on this drive.
$GetCurrent, $SysReset, $WinREAgent, OneDriveTemp and adobeTemp use about 4.25Gb between them.
NVIDIA and PerfLogs are both empty. temp contains one tiny file.
Program Files has a size of 27Gb, Program Files (x86) contains 7Gb and ProgramData contains 64Gb of files.
Users has size 22Gb and Windows has size 26Gb.
These total up to under 150Gb so there should be 325Gb of free space on the drive.
Can anyone suggest how I find out what is consuming nearly 300Gb of space and is not visible to me in File Explorer.
Also how do I free up the space which is hidden from me.
Thanks.

Please run:




See these links to free up space:

Go to Start - Settings - Storage. It will show what is using the drive space.

Run diskcleanup on your system files and see if there's some trash build-up.



Mine right now has some 8GB that I can delete...

badrobot said:

Run diskcleanup on your system files and see if there's some trash build-up.

View attachment 24796

Mine right now has some 8GB that I can delete...

View attachment 24797


View attachment 24798

Click to expand...

Is Disk Cleanup still available? I'm running Insider Builds and I don't have Disk Clean-up listed.

Ok, I find that I can still access Disk Cleanup doing a search for it.

if you type "disk clean-up" on the search bar, it will come up...

Winuser said:

Ok, I find that I can still access Disk Cleanup doing a search for it.

Click to expand...

I booted up my Insider build and "clean-up" was spelled without a dash in between.. :)

Start Menu -> All Apps -> Windows Tools

If you are using hibernate, your hiberfil.sys is set to use disk space equal to 40% of your ram. (In your case almost 13 gb) Either reduce the space alloted for hiberfil.sys or turn off hibernation and use sleep to reclaim the space, which is what I did.

Go to the root of your C: and make sure you do not have a windows.old folder present. You have to run disk cleanup as administrator before it will appear in the list as old windows installations. You also have to check the box beside it.

Check system restore configuration to see how much space is allotted for it as well. It's usually around 6% of the amount of your hard drive. If you do not use system restore as I do not since I rely on backups, check the box to turn it off, under configure, slide the bar to 0, click ok when the warning your restore points are going to be deleted

I agree with @zbook. Treesize Free and a little time will find where your disk space is going.

badrobot said:

I booted up my Insider build and "clean-up" was spelled without a dash in between.. :)

View attachment 24803

Click to expand...

Probably because I already did a search for disk cleanup tonight, but it comes up as soon as I type the letter d.

Pin it to your taskbar. You should be using Disk Cleanup every time you use your PC.

Back on topic. @k0065126, did you find what files or programs are using all that drive space?

k0065126 said:

Win 11, Version 21H2 (OS Build 22000.556.
My C drive (SSD) has a capacity of 475Gb and apparently only 36.8Gb of free space. This suggests that about 440Gb is taken up by programs, operating system and other files.
I have checked the file size of every folder on this drive.
$GetCurrent, $SysReset, $WinREAgent, OneDriveTemp and adobeTemp use about 4.25Gb between them.
NVIDIA and PerfLogs are both empty. temp contains one tiny file.
Program Files has a size of 27Gb, Program Files (x86) contains 7Gb and ProgramData contains 64Gb of files.
Users has size 22Gb and Windows has size 26Gb.
These total up to under 150Gb so there should be 325Gb of free space on the drive.
Can anyone suggest how I find out what is consuming nearly 300Gb of space and is not visible to me in File Explorer.
Also how do I free up the space which is hidden from me.
Thanks.

Click to expand...

Another thing to check after all of the above is Disk Management to make sure your total drive size isn't partitioned into more than the usual 3 partitions (Boot, System, and recovery).

If none of the above finds almost 300 GB of 'missing' space, this might help.

Also, did you clone a drive from an older machine / smaller drive to this one? Disk management will also show if your main partition is not using all of its space.

By the way, before you start your search, in file explorer options make sure you have show hidden files folder and drives checked.

Thanks zbook, here is what tuneup.log shows:-

Microsoft Windows 11 Home Version 21H2 (OS Build 22000.556)

==================================================================

Started on 20/03/2022 at 0:19:43.84

[SFC /ScanNow]

Beginning system scan. This process will take some time.

Results:

Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations.

==================================================================

Started on 20/03/2022 at 0:23:46.37

[DISM /online /cleanup-image /ScanHealth]

Deployment Image Servicing and Management tool
Version: 10.0.22000.1

Image Version: 10.0.22000.556

No component store corruption detected.

The operation completed successfully.

==================================================================

Started on 20/03/2022 at 0:27:22.50

[DISM /online /cleanup-image /RestoreHealth]

Deployment Image Servicing and Management tool
Version: 10.0.22000.1

Image Version: 10.0.22000.556

The restore operation completed successfully.

The operation completed successfully.

==================================================================

The second "SFC /ScanNow" was skipped, as the first output the following:

Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations.

==================================================================

Started on 20/03/2022 at 0:30:51.60

[ChkDsk /Scan]

The type of the file system is NTFS.

Stage 1: Examining basic file system structure ...
1400576 file records processed.
File verification completed.
Phase duration (File record verification): 11.57 seconds.
9490 large file records processed.
Phase duration (Orphan file record recovery): 6.21 milliseconds.
0 bad file records processed.
Phase duration (Bad file record checking): 0.09 milliseconds.

Stage 2: Examining file name linkage ...
778 reparse records processed.
1645126 index entries processed.
Index verification completed.
Phase duration (Index verification): 29.52 seconds.
0 unindexed files scanned.
Phase duration (Orphan reconnection): 11.59 seconds.
0 unindexed files recovered to lost and found.
Phase duration (Orphan recovery to lost and found): 0.16 milliseconds.
778 reparse records processed.
Phase duration (Reparse point and Object ID verification): 9.81 milliseconds.

Stage 3: Examining security descriptors ...
Security descriptor verification completed.
Phase duration (Security descriptor verification): 167.93 milliseconds.
122276 data files processed.
Phase duration (Data attribute verification): 0.17 milliseconds.
CHKDSK is verifying Usn Journal...
37097824 USN bytes processed.
Usn Journal verification completed.
Phase duration (USN journal verification): 134.59 milliseconds.

Windows has scanned the file system and found no problems.

No further action is required.

498798591 KB total disk space.
473603956 KB in 864712 files.
468212 KB in 122277 indexes.
0 KB in bad sectors.
1532263 KB in use by the system.
65536 KB occupied by the log file.
23194160 KB available on disk.

4096 bytes in each allocation unit.
124699647 total allocation units on disk.
5798540 allocation units available on disk.
Total duration: 53.02 seconds (53027 ms).

==================================================================

Started on 20/03/2022 at 0:32:12.72

AutoReboot

TRUE

==================================================================

[Set AutoReboot = False]

Updating property(s) of '\\DESKTOP-KPSLSPP\ROOT\CIMV2:Win32_OSRecoveryConfiguration.Name="Microsoft Windows 11 Home|C:\\WINDOWS|\\Device\\Harddisk0\\Partition1"'
Property(s) update successful.
==================================================================

AutoReboot

FALSE

==================================================================

DebugInfoType

7

==================================================================

[Set DebugInfoType = 7]

Updating property(s) of '\\DESKTOP-KPSLSPP\ROOT\CIMV2:Win32_OSRecoveryConfiguration.Name="Microsoft Windows 11 Home|C:\\WINDOWS|\\Device\\Harddisk0\\Partition1"'
Property(s) update successful.
==================================================================

DebugInfoType

7

==================================================================

[WMIC PageFile list]

AllocatedBaseSize=26624
CurrentUsage=3128
Description=C:\pagefile.sys
InstallDate=20200504221916.587333+000
Name=C:\pagefile.sys
PeakUsage=4056
Status=
TempPageFile=FALSE

==================================================================

AutomaticManagedPagefile

TRUE

==================================================================

[Set AutomaticManagedPagefile = True]

Updating property(s) of '\\DESKTOP-KPSLSPP\ROOT\CIMV2:Win32_ComputerSystem.Name="DESKTOP-KPSLSPP"'
Property(s) update successful.
==================================================================

AutomaticManagedPagefile

TRUE

==================================================================

[BcdEdit /enum {badmemory}]

RAM Defects
-----------
identifier {badmemory}

==================================================================

Finished on 20/03/2022 at 0:32:16.91
It took 12 minutes and 33 seconds to complete the operations.

____________________________________
I will look at the other answers this evening, but thanks to all who have made suggestions in the meantime.

The tuneup plus results above look good.

When available please post results from diskpar info.

And post images of tree size results.

Thanks zbook, here are the results from DiskparInfo.log.

Disk 0 : SSD. It has 4 partition(s). Model: GIGABYTE GP-ASM2NE2512GTTDR
Disk 1 : SSD. It has 2 partition(s). Model: INTEL SSDSC2MH250A2
Disk 2 : SSD. It has 1 partition(s). Model: Samsung SSD 850 PRO 1TB
Disk 3 : HDD. It has 2 partition(s). Model: ST8000DM002-1YW112
Disk 4 : SSD. It has 1 partition(s). Model: Corsair Performance Pro

The script has found the above 5 storage device(s) in total.

=============================================================================

Drive
Letter Drive Label Fs Free Space Used Space Capacity Free
------ --------------- ------ ---------- ---------- ---------- -----
NTFS 504.04 MB 15.96 MB 520.00 MB 97 %
FAT32 67.03 MB 28.97 MB 96.00 MB 70 %
NTFS 85.23 MB 570.76 MB 656.00 MB 13 %
NTFS 506.55 MB 14.45 MB 521.00 MB 97 %
C NTFS 36.47 GB 439.22 GB 475.69 GB 8 %
D Documents NTFS 133.51 GB 104.96 GB 238.47 GB 56 %
E Backups NTFS 622.45 GB 331.42 GB 953.86 GB 65 %
F Photos NTFS 2.26 TB 5.02 TB 7.28 TB 31 %
G Spare NTFS 166.21 GB 66.16 GB 232.37 GB 72 %
H 0 B 0 B 0 B

=============================================================================

Microsoft DiskPart version 10.0.22000.1

The "Free" column below refers to unallocated space rather than unused space.
On computer: DESKTOP-KPSLSPP

Disk ### Status Size Free Dyn Gpt
-------- ------------- ------- ------- --- ---
Disk 0 Online 476 GB 1024 KB *
Disk 1 Online 232 GB 3072 KB
Disk 2 Online 953 GB 4096 KB
Disk 3 Online 7452 GB 0 B *
Disk 4 Online 238 GB 0 B *

Volume ### Ltr Label Fs Type Size Status Info
---------- --- ----------- ----- ---------- ------- --------- --------
Volume 0 H DVD-ROM 0 B No Media
Volume 1 C NTFS Partition 475 GB Healthy Boot
Volume 2 NTFS Partition 656 MB Healthy Hidden
Volume 3 FAT32 Partition 100 MB Healthy System
Volume 4 NTFS Partition 520 MB Healthy Hidden
Volume 5 G Spare NTFS Partition 232 GB Healthy
Volume 6 NTFS Partition 521 MB Healthy Hidden
Volume 7 E Backups NTFS Partition 953 GB Healthy
Volume 8 F Photos NTFS Partition 7451 GB Healthy
Volume 9 D Documents NTFS Partition 238 GB Healthy

Disk 0 is now the selected disk.

GIGABYTE GP-ASM2NE2512GTTDR
Disk ID: {ECC5F1A4-2C0E-11EC-B5A0-B42E9933FDAC}
Type : NVMe
Status : Online
Path : 0
Target : 0
LUN ID : 0
Location Path : PCIROOT(0)#PCI(1D00)#PCI(0000)#NVME(P00T00L00)
Current Read-only State : No
Read-only : No
Boot Disk : Yes
Pagefile Disk : Yes
Hibernation File Disk : No
Crashdump Disk : Yes
Clustered Disk : No

Volume ### Ltr Label Fs Type Size Status Info
---------- --- ----------- ----- ---------- ------- --------- --------
Volume 1 C NTFS Partition 475 GB Healthy Boot
Volume 2 NTFS Partition 656 MB Healthy Hidden
Volume 3 FAT32 Partition 100 MB Healthy System
Volume 4 NTFS Partition 520 MB Healthy Hidden

Partition ### Type Size Offset
------------- ---------------- ------- -------
Partition 1 Primary 475 GB 1024 KB
Partition 2 Recovery 656 MB 475 GB
Partition 3 System 100 MB 476 GB
Partition 4 Recovery 520 MB 476 GB

Partition 1 is now the selected partition.

Partition 1
Type : ebd0a0a2-b9e5-4433-87c0-68b6b72699c7
Hidden : No
Required: No
Attrib : 0000000000000000
Offset in Bytes: 1048576

Volume ### Ltr Label Fs Type Size Status Info
---------- --- ----------- ----- ---------- ------- --------- --------
* Volume 1 C NTFS Partition 475 GB Healthy Boot

Partition 2 is now the selected partition.

Partition 2
Type : de94bba4-06d1-4d40-a16a-bfd50179d6ac
Hidden : Yes
Required: Yes
Attrib : 0X8000000000000001
Offset in Bytes: 510770806784

Volume ### Ltr Label Fs Type Size Status Info
---------- --- ----------- ----- ---------- ------- --------- --------
* Volume 2 NTFS Partition 656 MB Healthy Hidden

Partition 3 is now the selected partition.

Partition 3
Type : c12a7328-f81f-11d2-ba4b-00a0c93ec93b
Hidden : Yes
Required: No
Attrib : 0X8000000000000000
Offset in Bytes: 511459721216

Volume ### Ltr Label Fs Type Size Status Info
---------- --- ----------- ----- ---------- ------- --------- --------
* Volume 3 FAT32 Partition 100 MB Healthy System

Partition 4 is now the selected partition.

Partition 4
Type : de94bba4-06d1-4d40-a16a-bfd50179d6ac
Hidden : Yes
Required: Yes
Attrib : 0X8000000000000001
Offset in Bytes: 511564578816

Volume ### Ltr Label Fs Type Size Status Info
---------- --- ----------- ----- ---------- ------- --------- --------
* Volume 4 NTFS Partition 520 MB Healthy Hidden

Disk 1 is now the selected disk.

INTEL SSDSC2MH250A2
Disk ID: C9301753
Type : SATA
Status : Online
Path : 0
Target : 1
LUN ID : 0
Location Path : PCIROOT(0)#PCI(1700)#ATA(C00T01L00)
Current Read-only State : No
Read-only : No
Boot Disk : No
Pagefile Disk : No
Hibernation File Disk : No
Crashdump Disk : No
Clustered Disk : No

Volume ### Ltr Label Fs Type Size Status Info
---------- --- ----------- ----- ---------- ------- --------- --------
Volume 5 G Spare NTFS Partition 232 GB Healthy
Volume 6 NTFS Partition 521 MB Healthy Hidden

Partition ### Type Size Offset
------------- ---------------- ------- -------
Partition 1 Primary 232 GB 1024 KB
Partition 2 Recovery 521 MB 232 GB

Partition 1 is now the selected partition.

Partition 1
Type : 07
Hidden: No
Active: Yes
Offset in Bytes: 1048576

Volume ### Ltr Label Fs Type Size Status Info
---------- --- ----------- ----- ---------- ------- --------- --------
* Volume 5 G Spare NTFS Partition 232 GB Healthy

Partition 2 is now the selected partition.

Partition 2
Type : 27
Hidden: No
Active: No
Offset in Bytes: 249509707776

Volume ### Ltr Label Fs Type Size Status Info
---------- --- ----------- ----- ---------- ------- --------- --------
* Volume 6 NTFS Partition 521 MB Healthy Hidden

Disk 2 is now the selected disk.

Samsung SSD 850 PRO 1TB
Disk ID: 05F1BBE2
Type : SATA
Status : Online
Path : 0
Target : 2
LUN ID : 0
Location Path : PCIROOT(0)#PCI(1700)#ATA(C00T02L00)
Current Read-only State : No
Read-only : No
Boot Disk : No
Pagefile Disk : No
Hibernation File Disk : No
Crashdump Disk : No
Clustered Disk : No

Volume ### Ltr Label Fs Type Size Status Info
---------- --- ----------- ----- ---------- ------- --------- --------
Volume 7 E Backups NTFS Partition 953 GB Healthy

Partition ### Type Size Offset
------------- ---------------- ------- -------
Partition 1 Primary 953 GB 32 KB

Partition 1 is now the selected partition.

Partition 1
Type : 07
Hidden: No
Active: Yes
Offset in Bytes: 32768

Volume ### Ltr Label Fs Type Size Status Info
---------- --- ----------- ----- ---------- ------- --------- --------
* Volume 7 E Backups NTFS Partition 953 GB Healthy

Disk 3 is now the selected disk.

ST8000DM002-1YW112
Disk ID: {98D66F4E-D4F7-4549-817C-A68D25DD6B60}
Type : SATA
Status : Online
Path : 0
Target : 3
LUN ID : 0
Location Path : PCIROOT(0)#PCI(1700)#ATA(C00T03L00)
Current Read-only State : No
Read-only : No
Boot Disk : No
Pagefile Disk : No
Hibernation File Disk : No
Crashdump Disk : No
Clustered Disk : No

Volume ### Ltr Label Fs Type Size Status Info
---------- --- ----------- ----- ---------- ------- --------- --------
Volume 8 F Photos NTFS Partition 7451 GB Healthy

Partition ### Type Size Offset
------------- ---------------- ------- -------
Partition 1 Reserved 128 MB 17 KB
Partition 2 Primary 7451 GB 129 MB

Partition 1 is now the selected partition.

Partition 1
Type : e3c9e316-0b5c-4db8-817d-f92df00215ae
Hidden : Yes
Required: No
Attrib : 0000000000000000
Offset in Bytes: 17408

There is no volume associated with this partition.

Partition 2 is now the selected partition.

Partition 2
Type : ebd0a0a2-b9e5-4433-87c0-68b6b72699c7
Hidden : No
Required: No
Attrib : 0000000000000000
Offset in Bytes: 135266304

Volume ### Ltr Label Fs Type Size Status Info
---------- --- ----------- ----- ---------- ------- --------- --------
* Volume 8 F Photos NTFS Partition 7451 GB Healthy

Disk 4 is now the selected disk.

Corsair Performance Pro
Disk ID: {86E205FF-9BC7-491F-AC81-13BC5DABA2C6}
Type : SATA
Status : Online
Path : 0
Target : 5
LUN ID : 0
Location Path : PCIROOT(0)#PCI(1700)#ATA(C00T05L00)
Current Read-only State : No
Read-only : No
Boot Disk : No
Pagefile Disk : No
Hibernation File Disk : No
Crashdump Disk : No
Clustered Disk : No

Volume ### Ltr Label Fs Type Size Status Info
---------- --- ----------- ----- ---------- ------- --------- --------
Volume 9 D Documents NTFS Partition 238 GB Healthy

Partition ### Type Size Offset
------------- ---------------- ------- -------
Partition 1 Primary 238 GB 1024 KB

Partition 1 is now the selected partition.

Partition 1
Type : ebd0a0a2-b9e5-4433-87c0-68b6b72699c7
Hidden : No
Required: No
Attrib : 0000000000000000
Offset in Bytes: 1048576

Volume ### Ltr Label Fs Type Size Status Info
---------- --- ----------- ----- ---------- ------- --------- --------
* Volume 9 D Documents NTFS Partition 238 GB Healthy

===============================================================================

Windows Recovery Environment (Windows RE) and system reset configuration
Information:

Windows RE status: Enabled
Windows RE location: \\?\GLOBALROOT\device\harddisk0\partition2\Recovery\WindowsRE
Boot Configuration Data (BCD) identifier: 74198418-2d2d-11ec-9b09-eba421e2eb38
Recovery image location:
Recovery image index: 0
Custom image location:
Custom image index: 0

REAGENTC.EXE: Operation Successful.

===============================================================================

Firmware Boot Manager
---------------------
identifier {fwbootmgr}
displayorder {bootmgr}
timeout 1

Windows Boot Manager
--------------------
identifier {bootmgr}
device partition=\Device\HarddiskVolume9
path \EFI\MICROSOFT\BOOT\BOOTMGFW.EFI
description Windows Boot Manager
locale en-GB
inherit {globalsettings}
default {current}
resumeobject {74198415-2d2d-11ec-9b09-eba421e2eb38}
displayorder {current}
toolsdisplayorder {memdiag}
timeout 30

Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier {current}
device partition=C:
path \WINDOWS\system32\winload.efi
description Windows 11
locale en-GB
inherit {bootloadersettings}
recoverysequence {74198418-2d2d-11ec-9b09-eba421e2eb38}
displaymessageoverride Recovery
recoveryenabled Yes
isolatedcontext Yes
allowedinmemorysettings 0x15000075
osdevice partition=C:
systemroot \WINDOWS
resumeobject {74198415-2d2d-11ec-9b09-eba421e2eb38}
nx OptIn
bootmenupolicy Standard

Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier {74198418-2d2d-11ec-9b09-eba421e2eb38}
device ramdisk=[\Device\HarddiskVolume8]\Recovery\WindowsRE\Winre.wim,{74198419-2d2d-11ec-9b09-eba421e2eb38}
path \windows\system32\winload.efi
description Windows Recovery Environment
locale en-GB
inherit {bootloadersettings}
displaymessage Recovery
osdevice ramdisk=[\Device\HarddiskVolume8]\Recovery\WindowsRE\Winre.wim,{74198419-2d2d-11ec-9b09-eba421e2eb38}
systemroot \windows
nx OptIn
bootmenupolicy Standard
winpe Yes

Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier {da12d83c-2c0f-11ec-b5a0-b42e9933fdac}
device ramdisk=[\Device\HarddiskVolume10]\Recovery\WindowsRE\Winre.wim,{da12d83d-2c0f-11ec-b5a0-b42e9933fdac}
path \windows\system32\winload.efi
description Windows Recovery Environment
locale en-US
inherit {bootloadersettings}
displaymessage Recovery
displaymessageoverride PushButtonReset
osdevice ramdisk=[\Device\HarddiskVolume10]\Recovery\WindowsRE\Winre.wim,{da12d83d-2c0f-11ec-b5a0-b42e9933fdac}
systemroot \windows
nx OptIn
bootmenupolicy Standard
winpe Yes

Resume from Hibernate
---------------------
identifier {74198415-2d2d-11ec-9b09-eba421e2eb38}
device partition=C:
path \WINDOWS\system32\winresume.efi
description Windows Resume Application
locale en-GB
inherit {resumeloadersettings}
recoverysequence {74198418-2d2d-11ec-9b09-eba421e2eb38}
recoveryenabled Yes
isolatedcontext Yes
allowedinmemorysettings 0x15000075
filedevice partition=C:
custom:21000026 partition=C:
filepath \hiberfil.sys
bootmenupolicy Standard
debugoptionenabled No

Windows Memory Tester
---------------------
identifier {memdiag}
device partition=\Device\HarddiskVolume9
path \EFI\Microsoft\Boot\memtest.efi
description Windows Memory Diagnostic
locale en-GB
inherit {globalsettings}
badmemoryaccess Yes

EMS Settings
------------
identifier {emssettings}
bootems No

Debugger Settings
-----------------
identifier {dbgsettings}
debugtype Local

RAM Defects
-----------
identifier {badmemory}

Global Settings
---------------
identifier {globalsettings}
inherit {dbgsettings}
{emssettings}
{badmemory}

Boot Loader Settings
--------------------
identifier {bootloadersettings}
inherit {globalsettings}
{hypervisorsettings}

Hypervisor Settings
-------------------
identifier {hypervisorsettings}
hypervisordebugtype Serial
hypervisordebugport 1
hypervisorbaudrate 115200

Resume Loader Settings
----------------------
identifier {resumeloadersettings}
inherit {globalsettings}

Device options
--------------
identifier {74198419-2d2d-11ec-9b09-eba421e2eb38}
description Windows Recovery
ramdisksdidevice partition=\Device\HarddiskVolume8
ramdisksdipath \Recovery\WindowsRE\boot.sdi

Device options
--------------
identifier {da12d83d-2c0f-11ec-b5a0-b42e9933fdac}
description Windows Recovery
ramdisksdidevice partition=\Device\HarddiskVolume10
ramdisksdipath \Recovery\WindowsRE\boot.sdi

Here is the result from TreeSizeFree:-



It looks as if it is the 186.8Gb in system volume information which is the cause of my low free space. I am not sure if deleting these files, if I could find them, would cause a problem.

Thanks Winuser, I have turned on Storage Sense to see if that helps.