Losing Hard Drive Space

[gurtch]

Not sure where to post this, but see below:


I have a relatively new PC with two hard drives. The C drive is 500 GB and contains only programs. My D drive is 1 TB., which is for files only. I have 11 directories on my D drive with usages as follows:
3.39 GB
310 mb
52 kb
6.79 GB
1.32 GB
4.02 GB
314 GB (My photo files)
3.18 Gb
192 mb
4.35 GB
13.51 GB
In round numbers I think this about 350+ GB. My hard drive properties show 832 GB used, and 94.2 available!
When I firsrt received my PC I noticed my D drive filling up too qucikly. I employed a local PC guy and we determined the Mfg had enanabled some kind of mirror back up. He could not figure out how to get rid of it, so I saved everything to an external drive, and he reformatted the disk. It seems again there is something going on that is stealing my hard drive space. Any ideas?
Thanks
Dave in NJ
PS-I am 75 yrs old, and not a PC expert by any means.
Thanks in advance!

 

[GlenC]

Check if your Recycle Bin folder is filling up (your deleted files will be placed here). You can either just empty it or turn it off - so deleted files are immediately deleted. Each drive can have one. Not sure which version of Windows you have but here is a link for more info about it in Windows 7

Change the Recycle Bin settings

 

[D&A]

Dave, from one non PC expert to another (non Pc expert), permit me to take a wild stab at this...until the real "PC" men here in these forums come up with the right answer

I know that in many fo the recent PC computers I've used in the past few years, the "D" drive (or sometimes part of it) has a partition that has "system operating files" on it that are protected. In other words, theres some protection in writing over them or maybe deleting them to some extent. Its manufacturer dependent in how this is implemented. I think you and the local PC guy were on the right track about your PC either protecting these files or the system automatically makes a mirror back-up and if deleted, somehow is designed to come right back (or another copy generated). Getting rid of it may not be possible (unless someone goes into the bios of the computer (upon start-up) and finds a way to change a setting related to this. Again, I may have mis-diagnosed all this by a "country mile".

Using your external hard drive to store all your image files is a good way to go. This way they can be transposted from computer to computer easily. Just make sure you make a back-up copy of your files from this drive onto another, like on one of your internal hard drives.

Anyhow, if you find out what the source of you internal hard drive issue is, please let us know.

Dave, I've long ago realized age has nothing to do with a being a PC expert. I'm a bit younger than you and I'm probably as much or even more of a computer illterate than most anyone. Even if I could take a drink from the "Fountain of Youth", unfortunately in this case, it's not going to help me one little bit...LOL!

Dave (D&A)

 

[gurtch]

Dave: as usual, your kind and encouraging words. I did email tech suport of the PC vendor (custom built by Puget Systems) today. On another forum, a freeware program called CCleaner was recommended. I emptied the recycle bin, ran CCleaner, defragged the disk, and did recover a significant amount of space, but nowhere near all of it. I think CCleaner found a bunch of temporary files.
I will report back....thanks for your tips.
Dave

 

[Don Libby]

Try this...

Assuming you have a PC and not a MAC, go to your Control Panel, from there Administrative Tools then on to Computer Management. Once you have Computer Management open look over to the left side of the screen under "Storage", there you'll see "Disk Management". Click on that.

It might take a short while for your computer to read all your drives however it'll open up showing all the drives connected to your computer.

Disk 0 is your operating drive. This is the drive that houses you software and is commonly your C:\ drive.

Disk 1 is your other drive (D:\) Your should see a visual representation of the drive with either a wide open space or segmented. In either case it'll tell you the total volume of the drive and in the case of segmented the volume in each segment.

You can do all this without damaging any files on your computer - just be careful and read everything twise before your commit to anything. Moving your mouse over the block on the left (where it identifies Disk #) and right clicking will give you options - the same as with the block to the right.

Any external drive connected to your computer will likewise show up.

My suggestion is to get yourself an external drive powered either by eSata, firewire, or USB (in that order) to keep all your files. Then use your D:\ drive as a scratch disk.

Good luck!

Don

BTW - I'm on a dual 12 core, 96GB RAM with 4-internal drives and 2-external systems totaling over 12TB of storage. I'm not that much younger than you....

 

[Jorgen Udvang]

Storing data on an external device is very good advice. I use two identical boxes (4 bays in each) where one is backup that is automatically performed on a daily basis. I would recommend boxes that have a cooling fan. They tend to last longer. I use Probox and is quite happy with that, but there are many solutions. I also recommend strongly to have an off-site backup that is updated regularly.

The filling up of hard disks is an old problem, and it's very surprising that Microsoft haven't been able to fix it. When I was still using PC's, temporary data was the main culprit, and it was one of many reasons why I changed to that other brand.

 

[gurtch]

Don & Jorgen: tomorrow i will do as you suggest. I have a full time back up external drive that i incrementally back up to every hour or so when i am really working on a difficult/fun project. I archive to two different duplicate 1TB external drives. The only files i keep on my D drive are recent files that i am working on, or files i use on a regular basis. I really appreciate your help. This is a great community here.
Dave

 

[gurtch]

Don: my wife of 53 years and I just returned from a trip to Tucson. Our son in Minnesotta has a vacation home in Oro Valley, and he generously invites us to spend some time there in the winter. A lovely place so unlike where we live. Every locale has it's charm. I do seascape photography, so mountains and cactus are a nice change of pace. Would love to look you up, when there. If you are in the NJ coast area, look me up.
Very best
Dave Gurtcheff
Beach Haven, NJ
MODERN PICTORIALS

 

[Troubled Bison]

Right click on my computer. Then go to properties. Go to system protection. Take a look under "System Restore."

If you have multiple drives, by default it will be turned on for all of your drives. Turn off system restore and reboot. You'll recover lots of space.

 

[Troubled Bison]

Here's a link to a tutorial with screenshots to follow.

Disable System Restore in Windows 7 or Vista - How-To Geek

 

[gurtch]

THANKS ALL! Thanks to all, I now have recovered 500GB of space. It went from 94.2 GB free space to 594GB of free space. Almost all was for temporary files and thanks to Troubled Bison, I found 198GB used for system restore files. I turned this off, and deleted previous restore points since I store my files to 3 external drives, and my system files, programs, drivers etc, etc is on the C drive.
Again, thanks all saved me buying a new internal drive!
Dave in NJ