windows 11 C drive literally full...cant be cleaned

Hi... i own a asus laptop with 256GB HDD and a later installed 1 TB HDD...my C drive now shows only 9.76 GB out of 129 GB free...and its marked in red.how can i clean this C drive.im on windows 11 now

It only shows red because less than ten percent of space is free, it is not necessarily a bad thing.
You could look for a Windows.Old folder and if that is quite large, it can be removed by using Disk Clean-up, a built in utility.
Press WIN+S and enter 'disk clean-up' then select run as adminstrator, if you see 'Windows.old or Windows Update Clean-up, you can select these and then let disk cleanup proceed.

anirudhpanwar19 said:

how can i clean this C drive.

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Is there any software that you don't use anymore ?
Check programs and features and go down the list.
If you see any programs you do not use any more
simply right click and choose Uninstall.
Also, install this Little program that will show you
what's installed and if you see windows.old as Kelper
suggests, you can delete the folder from inside this software.

The issues I've seen with low disk space were with Win8/8.1 then Win10 on 32GB drives, not enough room for later updates. I try to maintain 20% free space on a drive.

OP a little curious about what you posted. Do you now have 2 HDDs in the laptop or did you replace the 256 HDD with a larger 1 TB HDD? Also as you posted it's showing 9.76 GB available out of 129 GB. Depending on your drive configuration it appears you may have either cloned improperly or upgraded to a larger drive and formatted incorrectly if "A" drive is only showing 129 GB total.
And still running a HDD? Must be slow at snails.

Just to be clear but when I say "A" drive I mean "a drive" not to be confused by "C:" drive.

You've received some good suggestions already, but I would especially interested in @BamaInArk zeroed in on. If your OS drive is indeed only partitioned to use half of its actual size, then this might be fairly easy to remedy.

Could you please take a screenshot of what you see in Disk Management and post it here? That would help greatly in this circumstance.

Since I have not yet seen a response, let me just present an outline to possible next steps...

Note that what follows is just an outline, I have not included every step as this may cary from system to system.

We should look at that 256 GB disk in Disk Management to see if there is a large block of unallocted space. If there is, then we would proceed to the steps below:

We would first want to determine where the Windows partition exists. If the Windows partition is the last partition on the drive and it is followed with the unallocated space, then we simply extend the Windows partition into this unused space and we are done.

On the other hand, if the Windows partition is followed by a recovery tools partition and the recovery tools partition is followed with the unallocated space, then do this:

1) Make note of the recovery tools partition size.
2) Disable the recovery partition with a reagentc /disable command.
3) Delete the Recovery Tools partition.
4) Extend the Windows partition.
5) Shrink the Windows partition by the amount of space needed to recreate the Recovery Tools partition. Note that if you want to increase the size of the recovery partition, now would be a good time make it larger by shrinking the Windows partition by the amount of space you want to make available for the Recovery Tools partition.
6) Create the recovery tools partition. Please note that some special steps need to be taken to mark this as a Recovery Tools partition.
7) Re-enable the recovery partition with a reagentc /enable command.
8) Verify the Recovery Tools partition is properly seen by the system with a reagentc /info

At this point, if you look at C: in File Explorer, you should see the drive increased in size and additional free space available.

In this guide, you will learn the steps to understand the space usage on Windows 11.

"Can't be Cleaned" ???

That's an impossibility! I've been cleaning the crap out of PC's for way before Windows was even released.
I do it almost daily on my own PC(s).
Here's a report from just one such "Cleaning".

And that was after only two or three days of normal operations. Think how many files would build up in a month, a year, etc.
They will just collect till all available space is used up, UNLESS acted upon by the PC's owner, user, operator.


SO, How about just cleaning out the garbage?
I regularly clean out my own SSD with a batch file that I wrote, that removes all the .tmp, .old and .bac files in my HD, plus all the temporary internet files created by both Edge and Firefox. In just a couple of days, those browsers can generate well over 100,000 junk files.
I also empty the Prefetch folder and the Recycle Bins.*

* Since writing my Cleanup.bat (batch file program) earlier this year (2023) my little home made cleanup program has removed over a million garbage files.
And, my SSD remains as clean and efficient as it was months ago.

Those who do NO HD maintenance, will eventually be forced to do 'Something' because their HD will be full of junk.
This thread may well be a good example.

I'd love to have that PC with no more space, here, for about two hours.
In my past life's work as a Computer Service Tech, I've taken service calls on PC's like that, and was able to do a total recovery, back to Like-New condition....better actually.
TM

I can't get over, how some simple questions can result in such complicated answers. They just go on and on and on, , , yada, yada, yada.
Hard drive full? Clean out the junk files! There! Simple solution.
(Your kitchen is full of garbage bags? Then take out the Garbage!!! )

As I've said before, I'll gladly share my Cleanup batch file with anyone willing to use it.

All that takes is a PM.

TechnoMage

TechnoMage2021 said:

I can't get over, how some simple questions can result in such complicated answers.

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Yes, because you and I completely misread post #1!

Whether he still has his original 256GB hdd or this and his 1TB ssd, the point we missed is that he only has 129GB total storage.

It seems more likely that he made an error cloning, as another has suggested.

anirudhpanwar19 said:

Hi... i own a asus laptop with 256GB HDD and a later installed 1 TB HDD...my C drive now shows only 9.76 GB out of 129 GB free...and its marked in red.how can i clean this C drive.im on windows 11 now

Click to expand...

The very simple answer is to remove stuff you no longer need (or need locally). You can move it to another drive or move it to an external drive. Example you can move stuff out of the "Documents" or "Pictures" folder an external drive.

Simple.

Hmmm, I still wish that we could get a screenshot because I think that this is simple but it would appear that the OP is in no hurry to supply actual details that might help in resolving this