Out of disk space

lunisj · Oct 16, 2025

It appears I'm actually only using one user. The others are empty or have files with a most recent date of xx/xx/2021. Of 24 folders in the one User being used, only 5 folders contain files more recent than 2022 - AppData, Documents, EverNote, Music, OneDrive.
On the C:/ drive, I've found my son is DLing all my wife's iPhone pics to C:/ and I have duplicates of all Music. Those can all be moved to an external drive. Recycle Bin and Cache are empty of everything older than 9/1/25.
Give all that, I don't want to end up out of space again. It seems a 2TB drive would solve that.

Try3 · Oct 16, 2025

Can't we let the OP finish assessing the disk usage before proposing solutions?
Written before the OP's -

lunisj said:
It appears I'm actually only using one user

All the best,
Denis

gunrunnerjohn · Oct 16, 2025

lunisj said:
It appears I'm actually only using one user. The others are empty or have files with a most recent date of xx/xx/2021. Of 24 folders in the one User being used, only 5 folders contain files more recent than 2022 - AppData, Documents, EverNote, Music, OneDrive.
On the C:/ drive, I've found my son is DLing all my wife's iPhone pics to C:/ and I have duplicates of all Music. Those can all be moved to an external drive. Recycle Bin and Cache are empty of everything older than 9/1/25.
Give all that, I don't want to end up out of space again. It seems a 2TB drive would solve that.

So I'm guessing that the pictures and the music are the problems. Move those to an external drive and... problem solved!

Obviously, having a larger drive would be nice. If you do that, I recommend separating your user data from the operating system in a separate logical partition.

Scannerman · Oct 16, 2025

spapakons said:
Simple remedy: Replace 480GB SSD with 1TB or larger SSD like I did. Once a week move downloads and videos to other disk to free Windows disk.

Yup

spapakons said:
I would buy an external disk at least 4TB or larger and then move (cut-and-paste) all contents of my Downloads, Pictures and Video folders. Then see what free space is left. In worst case I would buy a larger disk (at least 6TB) and I would clone the 4TB disk on the new disk, so I can resume using Windows without reinstalling. All you need to do after cloning and booting from the new disk is to go to Disk Manager and expand the old partition to fill the new disk.

Yup

spapakons said:
If you have a huge video collection and you edit video in a format with little compression for today's standards, such as MJPG, it is not that hard to fill a 4TB disk. However, I agree, he probably has a small Windows partition which might be possible to expand.

Uh-huh . .

spapakons said:
For a desktop computer, connect new disk inside the computer. Boot with a clone utility USB flash drive. Clone original disk to new disk. Make sure you select the source disk (old) and target disk (new) correctly so not to lose any data. Remove the old disk and put the new in place of the old one. Boot to Windows. Open Disk Manager and expand the Windows partition to fill all the unallocated space. Congratulations, you have upgraded to a larger disk.

For a laptop, connect the new disk on a USB adaptor or suitable enclosure. Connect it to the laptop. Boot with the clone utility USB. Do as above and then swap the old disk with the new disk. Boot in the new disk, open Disk Manager and expand the Windows partition to fill all the unallocated space.

There are many disk backup applications which also include a clone function. Most of them also allow you to create a rescue CD (now known as Rescue USB). One of them Is Macrium Reflect. Find the free version here:

Download Macrium Reflect FREE Edition 8.0.7783 - MajorGeeks

With Macrium Reflect Free Edition you'll be able to easily make an accurate and reliable image of your HDD or individual partitions. Using this image you can restore the entire disk, partition or...

www.majorgeeks.com

Other is Hasleo. Download the free version here:

Download Hasleo Backup Suite 5.8.2.1 - MajorGeeks

Hasleo Backup Suite gives you access to backup, restore, and cloning features that can be used on both Windows PCs and servers. Hasleo Backup Suite comes packed with features encased in a user-friendly interface that is configured with complete usability in mind allowing any type of user to...

www.majorgeeks.com

And yes.

spapakons said:
Sometimes I have discovered that the disk APPEARS full due to some logical error (that is file system error, not physical damage). In that case running Check Disk to fix any errors would solve it. However, this is not a very common bug, so you might have to MOVE all your big files, downloads, videos etc to another disk as we have already said numerous times. If you want them available all the time, just install a second disk and copy them there.

Open a Command Prompt as Administrator and run this command:

chkdsk c: /f

If you also want to check and mark bad sectors, run this command instead:

chkdsk c: /f /b /r

Since the command cannot check the disk while Windows is running, it will ask you to schedule the check at next restart. Reply yes and restart to begin. Note that the second command syntax might take more than an hour, so you better leave it overnight.

And finally it comes to this. Which, for those who were reading the whole thread, I touched upon stating, "You have bigger problems". No worries. A clone can be immensely helpful in circumstances such as these. I have family too and I had to curb them from filling up my hard drives as well. Disk 1 Unknown/not initialized is a problem that needs to be fixed. Cloning the C drive will provide enough insurance to keep what you can before you proceed further.

Last week, in my case, my 4TB SSD also lapsed into the same state. I managed to recover most of the data just before this happened but it was scary because the SSD kept generating new partitions. Fortunately I already had most of the data in duplicate on a spinner. The rest was negligible. With the help of MiniTool I managed to repair the drive and reformat it. Alas, the following day I got the "Unknown/ not initialized" message. Attempts to initialize only resulted in a cyclic redundancy error. Yesterday the SSD was sent on a journey to the manufacturer. It looks like I'll be getting a replacement soon.

gunrunnerjohn · Oct 16, 2025

Scannerman said:
Last week, in my case, my 4TB SSD also lapsed into the same state. I managed to recover most of the data just before this happened but it was scary because the SSD kept generating new partitions. Fortunately I already had most of the data in duplicate on a spinner. The rest was negligible. With the help of MiniTool I managed to repair the drive and reformat it. Alas, the following day I got the "Unknown/ not initialized" message. Attempts to initialize only resulted in a cyclic redundancy error. Yesterday the SSD was sent on a journey to the manufacturer. It looks like I'll be getting a replacement soon.

One of life's harsh realities, disks fail, whether HDD or SSD.

The reason my backups are spread over half a dozen different drives, both SSD and HDD. They're also in multiple physical locations. Finally, critical files are also on a cloud backup service. Two of the backups are never connected except to execute the backup function. Hard to corrupt the data when there's no power on the drive and no connection to the computer.

pseymour · Oct 16, 2025

I'm not sure how Disk 1 being uninitialized is related to the Windows partition on another disk being full, but okay.

spapakons · Oct 16, 2025

pseymour said:
I'm not sure how Disk 1 being uninitialized is related to the Windows partition on another disk being full, but okay.

Probably a power failure destroyed what was a 4TB disk, and that explains why OP mentioned 4TB while his Windows disk is 480GB or 512GB. He confused the disks.

gunrunnerjohn · Oct 16, 2025

I think he can solve his whole issue by doing what he suggested, moving all those files in Music and Pictures to an external disk. Truthfully, if you host hour data files on a different logical drive, 500GB is plenty for the Windows partition.

spapakons · Oct 16, 2025

I agree, but I have the bad habit to store some downloads and videos in the Windows disk as well (inherited from earlier Windows versions), so I replaced my 480GB SSD with a 1TB SSD and still have less than 340GB free... I guess I have to spend some time again to free some space.

Scannerman · Oct 16, 2025

pseymour said:
I'm not sure how Disk 1 being uninitialized is related to the Windows partition on another disk being full, but okay.

The OP mentioned that they were using a 4TB drive. It was supposed to be for backup. Their screenshot shows me something else.

pseymour · Oct 16, 2025

Right, yes, but how is that related to the C: drive filling up? The answer is: it isn't.

Scannerman · Oct 16, 2025

spapakons said:
Probably a power failure destroyed what was a 4TB disk, and that explains why OP mentioned 4TB while his Windows disk is 480GB or 512GB. He confused the disks.

That's what I was thinking too. In my case I don't think it was a power failure but it may have been a Phison issue.

Scannerman · Oct 16, 2025

pseymour said:
Right, yes, but how is that related to the C: drive filling up? The answer is: it isn't.

That's why I stated that they had bigger problems.

Scannerman · Oct 16, 2025

gunrunnerjohn said:
One of life's harsh realities, disks fail, whether HDD or SSD. The reason my backups are spread over half a dozen different drives, both SSD and HDD. They're also in multiple physical locations. Finally, critical files are also on a cloud backup service. Two of the backups are never connected except to execute the backup function. Hard to corrupt the data when there's no power on the drive and no connection to the computer.

Air gapping definitely has its benefits. I'm thinking it was you who asked me why I used so many drives. The short answer is I am my own cloud. Keeping a clone of each OS in cold storage isn't a bad idea either. Networking isn't half as hard as it used to be. Keeping your options is the key. Funny you should mention HDD and SSD. I used to think SSDs were such a great deal because, "Look Ma, no moving parts!" I had no idea that it can also be tantamount to riding a bicycle with no hands. A failing spinner will often give a user sufficient warning to move their data elsewhere before it completely craters. A failing SSD fails fast.

gunrunnerjohn · Oct 16, 2025

Scannerman said:
I used to think SSDs were such a great deal because, "Look Ma, no moving parts!" I had no idea that it can also be tantamount to riding a bicycle with no hands. A failing spinner will often give a user sufficient warning to move their data elsewhere before it completely craters. A failing SSD fails fast.

I had a 2TB SATA SSD bite the dust in a flash after a short three month life, that was a wakeup call. Now I have a 4TB HDD as a secondary backup after the SSD, and my NAS also has HDD drives. SSD's live quietly and die quietly.

I have two 4TB SSD USB drives that alternately get connected for a complete system and data dump and then disconnected.

Scannerman · Oct 16, 2025

gunrunnerjohn said:
I had a 2TB SATA SSD bite the dust in a flash after a short three month life, that was a wakeup call. Now I have a 4TB HDD as a secondary backup after the SSD, and my NAS also has HDD drives. SSD's live quietly and die quietly.

I have two 4TB SSD USB drives that alternately get connected for a complete system and data dump and then disconnected.

Yup. SSDs are easy to kill. No warning chirps, no clicks, no chatter. Definitely binary — it either works or it doesn't. And when it goes, baby it's gone. I might have to rewire my switch box for SSDs only so I can air gap the power running to the larger SATA versions considering how quickly those cells burn out. It's starting to look like a good CMR drive will out last any SSD in the long run.

gunrunnerjohn · Oct 16, 2025

Scannerman said:
Yup. SSDs are easy to kill. No warning chirps, no clicks, no chatter. Definitely binary — it either works or it doesn't. And when it goes, baby it's gone. I might have to rewire my switch box for SSDs only so I can air gap the power running to the larger SATA versions considering how quickly those cells burn out. It's starting to look like a good CMR drive will out last any SSD in the long run.

I picked the IronWolf because it was a CMR drive, it was certainly reasonably priced for a 4TB drive, $84 on Amazon. I replaced a 4TB SSD with this one and put the SSD in my secondary machine.

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