Something is eating my storage

compiler · May 6, 2022

Dell Inspiron 15-5510 W11 home 21 H2 22000.613

My free space keeps getting smaller at an alarming pace.

I checked settings/system/storage. Nothing jumped out.

I'm now going to make note of the memory used by the 4 main categories listed and see if I can narrow it down.

Any suggestions on what to look for? I'm at a loss here.

Mel

barman58 · May 6, 2022

Main things to check are temporary files Most applications, and windows itself store temporary data for many reasons, unfortunately they are not that good at removing their old data

Another culprit are system updates which can be compressed files that can take up GigaBytes of drive space, usually these will be set to be removed automatically - but again this may sometimes not take place

You can get automatic and manual apps to search for and remove these temporary files once you are happy that you no longer need them

spapakons · May 6, 2022

Open This PC, right-click on C: and select Properties, then Cleanup. Click to also incude system files. Check everything on the list and proceed. You will be amazed how many gigabytes you may get rid of.

compiler · May 6, 2022

Bar & Sppap:

I had already deleted temp files.
Cleanup didn't do much (about 1/2 gb).

There is something that continues to erode my free space. I am very suspicious of some of the DELL crap/bloatware on my computer.

Now here is a clue: I ran space sniffer, which is supposed to tell me space used by programs. It flags SARemediation as using almost 15 gbs. That is related to Dell Support Assist. BUT when I use File Explorer I do not find SARemediation using much space. What am I missing?

I also have Dell Data Vault (DDV). It is not listed in control panel programs. I want to get rid of it. I disable it in Services, but it comes right back after a reboot or two. There is a DDV folder within the DELL Folder. I'm thinking of deleting that. But I'm hesitant on what to get rid of.

I am going to watch the system/storage results and sniffer results. Maybe I will be able to spot what is increasing.

Mel

barman58 · May 6, 2022

Dell data vault is part of the built in system backup /recovery system on some Dell systems. It contains the changes from the saved original system image It should be uninstallable as a standard program

What Is Dell Data Vault and How to Remove It? - MiniTool

What is Dell Data vault? Is it possible for you to remove it from your computer? How to remove it? This post shows you the guides.

www.minitool.com

Of course if you have other means of system backups then the space for both segments of the Dell backup system can safely be removed

With the SARemediation there are methods of taming this particular beast

Reduce disk space used by SARemediation | DELL Technologies

Obviously Support Assist exists for a reason and I use it. Disk analysis indicates Support Assist has 84 folders containing a total of 125,310 files using 23 gigabytes of disk space. T...

www.dell.com

compiler · May 6, 2022

Barman:

Thanks, but alas no joy. The artical is incorrect because DDV is NOT listed in the Control Panel. So...can't remove it that way. I'm tempted to remove (or maybe just rename) the DDV folder. It's in the DELL folder in Program Files.

Mel

johnlgalt · May 6, 2022

Windows 11 will probably show it in the Apps section of Windows Settings, if it is not in the Program and Features section in Control Panel.

One thing you have to realize is that just manually removing the folder may cause all sorts of *other* issues, like that Dell utility trying to recreate it, and downloading a bunch of stuff to do so, or else one or more Dell utilities may stop working because it has been manually removed. For installed programs, if you want them removed the best (safest) way to avoid idiosyncrasies like that is to uninstall them.

barman58 · May 6, 2022

It may be safer to stop it or the item re-enabling the item loading at startup, Download Autoruns from Microsoft Sysinternals and use that to show all the items that load with windows - including the hidden system programs - Full documentation is in the link attached If you find the startup for the program you can uncheck the entry and it will not load in future - you can also re enable it if it causes any issues, by r-checking the entry

Autoruns - Sysinternals

See what programs are configured to startup automatically when your system boots and you login.

docs.microsoft.com

Mooly · May 6, 2022

In W10 I occasionally had very large files appearing in the 'livekernelreports' folder found under:

Code:

c:\windows\livekernelreports

These files were always safe to delete (I think they are just a crash dump) although I was never aware of any obvious operational problems actually causing them. Haven't seen them for ages now and not on W11 at all but it is something worth checking.

The-Hive · May 6, 2022

check this one as well

Windows 11 creates lots of empty folders in a System32 directory - gHacks Tech News

Microsoft's Windows 11 operating system creates lots of empty folders in a System32 directory, just like the Windows 10 operating system.

www.ghacks.net

you can stop these folders being created by going to Task Scheduler>Task Scheduler Library>Microsoft >Windows>Management>Provisioning and disabling Logon

compiler · May 6, 2022

Wow-- I have 1600 of those files. Is it really safe to delete them??

Mel

compiler · May 6, 2022

Mooly: The folder you mentioned, liveker...., is on my W11 machine. It appears to be an empty folder.

Mel

compiler · May 6, 2022

Folks, here's my latest attempt: I went into the C:/ProgramFiles/DELL/DellDataVault folder. There are loads of files there, including four DDV....EXE.
Question: If I call Dell and demand they uninstall this stuff, would they (RE

DV, and the SAReremediation)

Mel

Mooly · May 7, 2022

compiler said:
Mooly: The folder you mentioned, liveker...., is on my W11 machine. It appears to be an empty folder.

Mel

Worth just clicking it and having a peek. Mine (on W11) says empty if I hover over it but there was actually an empty folder within from last November. In the past (W10) I had some pretty massive files files in there, files getting on for 1Gb in size.

spapakons · May 7, 2022

Why not download a uninstall utility, such as IObit Uninstaller and force uninstall the Dell app? Such utilities can also search and uninstall applications not on the Programs and Features list. After uninstall they also search the Registry and file system and remove any leftovers. Also uninstall any other useless application to free more disk space. I would also download Superantispyware and Malwarebytes Antimalware to search and remove any malware, just in case.

compiler · May 7, 2022

Here's an update: I had written:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Folks, here's my latest attempt: I went into the C:/ProgramFiles/DELL/DellDataVault folder. There are loads of files there, including four DDV....EXE.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I forgot to add the most important part: I changed the "exe" to "old." That way I could see what happens without deleting anything.
What happened seems to be all good. Keeping my fingers crossed. The 4 DDV services that I changed to STOPPED this time did not switch to RUNNING. We shall see. Also, for once my shrinking free space did NOT shrink.

Nevertheless right now it is about 2:1 used to free space. It should be the reverse. Any ideas where to even LOOK?
I am not ready to uninstall DDV, but I'm getting more confident. But, somewhere, there is 10-20 gb being co-opted.

Spapakons-- I'll look into the Uninstall program.
Mooly -- I did have a peek. The folder is empty.
Hive -- is it safe to remove the 1600 empty folders with tmp at the end? It would seem so.

TairikuOkami · May 7, 2022

compiler said:
Any ideas where to even LOOK?

WizTree - The Fastest Disk Space Analyzer might help. You can also download this .bat file and run it as admin.

Windows/Windows Cleanup.bat at main · TairikuOokami/Windows

Windows. Contribute to TairikuOokami/Windows development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

compiler · May 8, 2022

IS THE PLOT THICKENING??
OK, before continuing, I decided to do a full image b/u. I use Macrium Reflect. But when I started, there seemed to be a new partition. It said 15.4 gb, which is about my free space shortage. It has a red line thru it; the other partitions have blue lines. When I'm done backing up, I'll compare the size of this image with previous ones. (Or does the red line mean it won't back it up?)

So, a big question: is there a way to ascertain the DATE this partition was made or at least what it contains. It may have been there when I got the computer. It would seem if this is my hijacked space I can use disk management to reclaim the space.

Further update: I did some more digging, so answered some of the above. The red line means the space is almost used up (90% in this case). That typefies the recovery partition,

Again, I'm seeking some advice.

Another alternative: I can just restore one of my backups. I have one from just before all this crap started!

If I restore, can I assume very recent stuff from my ONEDRIVE folder will reappear.

Mel

compiler · May 8, 2022

PROBLEM TOTALLY SOLVED -- WOO HOO!!

Shoutout to Tariku... I d/l WizTree. It identified System Volume Information as taking up a whopping 60 GB (yes "six-oh").
When I checked the folder, it showed 0 bytes and access denied. So, I had to play around with permissions but I got there. Incidentally, as part of my research, I found that this folder is often the culprit in these disk space issues and that restore points take up most of that space. So I took a side trip to restore points configurations and found that my entire drive was allocated to it and 53.5 gb was already taken up! I moved the slider to a generous maximum of about 15 gb. BOOM. Rebooted and almost 40 gb more of free space available.. I could have gotten more by doing about 8 gb for restore points.

Hopefully, this case is closed. We shall see.

Mel

AddRAM · May 8, 2022

Yes you have to watch system restore, it can get big. I check mine now and then and delete all my restore points and create a new one and a lot of space is gained back. If you rely on system images, then you don`t even need to use System Restore. I use it and keep the restore points to a minimum.