Weird computer issue

Rabs

Something has happened on my PC that I have never seen before..

It may be something to do with the Win 10 installation I did a week or so ago but even then it seems odd.

Basically, I keep a good eye on my hard disk space.. Last week I had 87gb of free space left..  Yesterday I went too look and all of a sudden it now says I have 330gb (out of 580) ??????  I get that Windows 10 is a bit smaller AND that its got rid of the system restore info from Win 7 but even that doesn't seem like it would take up like 250gig? All of my programs and files still seem in place.. I just don't get it.

Any ideas?

RaymondLin

Restore points, lots of them.

ICBM

Not sure, but I have the same sort of issue with an external hard drive on a Mac - it consistently shows more available space than there actually is, which is a pain in the bum when I want to copy something to it and there appears to be enough space, but then it tells me that there isn't.

Rabs

RaymondLin said:

Restore points, lots of them.

Well I just went and had a look at that..  From what I just read system restore will take between 3-5% of space and it doesn't keep really old ones, it writes over them...  So that doesn't really account for 250gb..   Of my 580gb system restore shouldn't have taken more than 30gb. I think Win 10 is smaller but again that's only by about 6gb...  Weird...

relic245

Download a freeware programme called windirstat.

It will analyse your hard drive. 

I had a similar problem recently, I had about 100 gig of files downloaded by windows updates that were no longer needed. 

Rabs

relic245 said:

Download a freeware programme called windirstat.

It will analyse your hard drive. 

I had a similar problem recently, I had about 100 gig of files downloaded by windows updates that were no longer needed. 

Cheers..  I will look in to it.

Grumpyrocker

Probably has a "Windows.old" folder or similar, enabling you to go back. Or old system restore points. 

Snags

Shadow Copy purge, plus removal of Windows.old and associates cruft. I assume it's reporting the actual drive size correctly?

marauder

ICBM said:

Not sure, but I have the same sort of issue with an external hard drive on a Mac - it consistently shows more available space than there actually is, which is a pain in the bum when I want to copy something to it and there appears to be enough space, but then it tells me that there isn't.

Its not just you.  Since I upgraded to high sierra, small capacity sd cards, 4gb and under show as 8gb.  Thought it was dodgy cards, but they are fine on same machine running snow leopard.  Very odd.

hywelg

Did you have a windows virtual machine in the old version of Windows which you haven't set up in win10?

SouthpawMark

Maybe all the porn has been deleted.

Rabs

hywelg said:

Did you have a windows virtual machine in the old version of Windows which you haven't set up in win10?

Not to my knowledge..

darthed1981

Snags got it right above, a clearout of windows update cache, shadow copies, restore points and even emptying your recycle bin, could easily get to 250GB!

Rabs

darthed1981 said:

Snags got it right above, a clearout of windows update cache, shadow copies, restore points and even emptying your recycle bin, could easily get to 250GB!

Hmm.. Still seems a lot to me but I have no other explanation other than its reporting the wrong size for what ever reason. I have read about this happening.

As I said last I knew there was about 87gb...  So I will just fill some more space over the next few months and see what happens when that amount has gone.. You are probably right though.

darthed1981

Rabs said:

darthed1981 said:

Snags got it right above, a clearout of windows update cache, shadow copies, restore points and even emptying your recycle bin, could easily get to 250GB!

Hmm.. Still seems a lot to me but I have no other explanation other than its reporting the wrong size for what ever reason. I have read about this happening.

As I said last I knew there was about 87gb...  So I will just fill some more space over the next few months and see what happens when that amount has gone.. You are probably right though.

It is a lot, you are right, but Windows is decidedly profligate in it's use of (available) resources.

It could be a corrupted index or something, but as you say, if it is, you will find out soon enough.

Snags

As it happens I purged nearly 300GB of crap from \windows\temp on a client machine today, courtesy of the odd rogue process. It can easily happen. 

stephen.wood125

As above, and also the ridiculous WinSxS (Windows Side by Side) folder should have gone, that used to monster a shit tonne of space in Windows 7

prowla

GB = gigabytes.

gb = grambits.

guitartango

Snags said:

As it happens I purged nearly 300GB of crap from \windows\temp on a client machine today, courtesy of the odd rogue process. It can easily happen. 

Mcafee was it