Where'd my hard drive space go?

Mark Krutke · From: Tomahawk, WI USA

When I look up the properties of my C drive, it shows that I have about only 25 gigs left, but with an 80 gig hard drive, I can't figure out where all my space went. I look at my C drive files and they don't show that I've used up 60 gigs. Does anyone know where all the usable space went? Help!

Ray Minich · From: Bradford, Pa. Frozen Tundra

How big is your partition. Did you start with an 80 gB partition? You may not be using all the drive. Just a thought...

Erv Niehaus · From: Litchfield, MN, USA

Have you checked your hard drive for viruses? I had a computer a few years ago that got a virus that created subdirectory after subdirectory and eventually my hard drive got so full the computer wouldn't even boot up.
Erv

Jim Cohen · From: Philadelphia, PA

Ray, please give me a layman's description of a "partition" and how to check whether it's set right to be using all of the hard drive.
Thanks!
jc

Dave Potter · From: Texas

When you say "you've looked at your C drive files", how did you do that?

Bill Bosler · From: Schwenksville, Pennsylvania, USA

If you have a computer with windows XP you may have an enormous "cabinet" file on your hard drive which won't show up with your Explorer program. The cabinet file is essentially a miror image of the entire operating system and all the software the manufacturer pre-loaded on your computer. It's used for system and driver file recovery and reinstallation of the pre-loaded software

[This message was edited by Bill Bosler on 14 December 2004 at 06:13 PM.]

Mark Krutke · From: Tomahawk, WI USA

Dave, when I looked at my files, I double-clicked "My Computer" and then double-clicked the "C" drive icon to view the files.

Is there any way I can view my C drive to see the total contents?

Lyle Bradford · From: Gilbert WV USA (deceased)

Mark right click on my computer and then left click on performance. It should tell you how much of your hard drive is free. Also you can double click on my computer and then right click on the c drive emblem and then left click on properties and veiw how much you have on your hard drive and how much is free. It should show you it to you in color

Les Pierce · From: Shreveport, LA

...and then do a "Search", being sure to check the button for large files. I'll bet you have a huge temp file somewhere. This can happen if your computer shuts down before it can delete a temp file it has created, (maybe while doing an edit of a graphic file).

Good luck,

Les

Dave Potter · From: Texas

<< Dave, when I looked at my files, I double-clicked "My Computer" and then double-clicked the "C" drive icon to view the files.

OK, Mark, just checking to verify exactly what you were looking at. That way of doing it gives you the same information as when you use Windows Explorer.

My first observation would be that you really had to add up a LOT of files to get to the total. I have more stuff on my PC than you, but when I do a virus check, the application counts over 50,000 files. I never want to have to add all those up one by one!.

The second point would be that, as others have hinted, you might not be seeing all your files, meaning that you may have your system files hidden. Open Windows Explorer, select Tools, Folder Options, and click the View tab. (This is Windows XP, other versions may be slightly different, but similar). You will see how your system is set, and which files you are seeing. Make any changes you want to, you won't hurt anything. I don't let my system hide any files, since I sometimes need to know if they're there, or what version they are, for troubleshooting purposes.

A much quicker way to see how much HD space your applications are using on your drive is to just go to Control Panel and open Add or Remove Programs. Each app will be listed there, along with its size in MB. Much easier than adding up individual files!.

A quick way to locate and eliminate a lot of unneeded files from your system is to use the Windows Disk Cleanup utility. In Windows XP, open My Computer, RIGHT click on your drive, select Properties, and on the General tab, you will see a Disk Cleanup button. Clicking it gives you the option to delete any of 6 categories of files you don't need.

The "More Options" tab give you still more flexibility to remove either any Windows components or programs you don't use.

You might be able to free up still more space by deleting all the files in your web browser Cache folder, which can be done with no adverse effect.

I do understand that your original question asked essentially how to know what's occupying the space on your drive, versus how to get some space back, but I thought you might be interested in the latter as well. I admit my suggestions are specific to my OS, Windows XP, but previous OSes had similar options. Hope I didn't add to the confusion.

[This message was edited by Dave Potter on 15 December 2004 at 05:36 AM.]

Dave Potter · From: Texas

Jim, PMJI here, but, a "partition" is a piece of hard drive real estate set aside as a discrete drive identifier. You can allocate all the drive to one partition, or you can have multiple partitions on a drive, each with its own drive letter. As an example, you could set up two partitions on one drive, and run Windows on one partition, and Linux on the other.

Windows systems default to drive letter "C" for the operating system, but one can assign other letters for other partitions, if any exist. So, for example, one hard drive might be totally allocated as Drive C, or it might be sub-divided as Drive C, Drive D, Drive E, etc.

At least in Windows XP, you can see how your drive(s) are partitioned by opening Control Panel/Administrative Tools/Computer Management/Disk Management. This will depict graphically the size of each drive and its partition(s), as well as its operational status. Right clicking on any of the drives shown opens a drop-down menu with several options, including changing the drive letter, changing the name of the drive (as shown in Windows Explorer), partitioning it, or deleting it.

Mark Krutke · From: Tomahawk, WI USA

Dave, it appears to all be on one partition.

I seemed to have lost the space when I reinstalled xp over my existing xp. Could this have something to do with space being taken up?

[This message was edited by Mark Krutke on 15 December 2004 at 07:40 AM.]

Dave Potter · From: Texas

<< I seemed to have lost the space when I reinstalled xp over my existing xp. Could this have something to do with space being taken up?

Mark, in the past, when I had crashes and I needed to do something drastic like that, Windows would not allow me to "install" over an existing installation. Instead, I would get offers to "repair" the existing one.

That never worked, by the way, which is why now, I make mirror images of my entire C: drive weekly using Drive Image, and store them on a different hard drive. I've used those images twice now to restore my C drive after crashes with total success.

If you somehow managed to get XP to reinstall over itself, the only way I can imagine it would occupy added HD space would be if you allowed it to install additional Windows components.

Maybe you need to verify you don't have two XP installs now. Do the folders still look the same when you look at them in Windows Explorer? You don't have two Windows folders do you?

Jeff Agnew · From: Dallas, TX

Mark, these applications may help you:

SpaceMonger - A very small program (212K) that shows you visually how much space is taken up by what folders/files on your hard drive. You can then zoom in on a directory for more detailed info about its contents. Far more powerful than what you can discover using the "Properties" panel in Windows.

DoubleKiller - Searches your hard drive & finds duplicate files. You can select the parameters - Name, Filesize, Date, folders, filetypes, etc.

[This message was edited by Jeff Agnew on 15 December 2004 at 07:54 AM.]

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