Help the remaining space on my c drive is disappearing

I

Illuminator

New Member
I guess i have to blame myself because i only allotted 33 gb to my c drive (running windows 7 64 bit, my d drive has over 300 gb) but even so I don't see how all of the space is being eaten up.

I save EVERYTHING on my D drive, but for some reason my C: drive which at its peak shows at least 4.5 gb free of hard drive space, sometimes gives me a low hard drive space message and when checked only shows 128 mb or so of hard drive space. I am not sure what is causing thing, i am sure it has something to do wiht applications open or running causing temporary shifts in the hard drive space but how do i assess this exactly and how to i go about re-mediating this issue?

Also, as a note I know i can extend my c drive but the problem is i would have to transfer all my files on my d drive first to another drive, and then from there extend my c drive from my D drive space, a pain in the rear that i don't want to do :D
 
Do you use Internet Explorer? There is a temporary internet files folder that fills up with junk every time you use IE, and that's where at least some of your space is going. Also, every time your computer does an update, Win automatically backs up the files it replaces.

You should also check where your swap file is being kept.

Is your D: drive a separate unit, or you just happened to partition C: to 33GB?
 
System restore will also take up some space. You can edit its setting to where it will only use say 5% of your disk space instead of 12% like it does in XP. 35gb is really not enough for windows 7. If you have free space on another partition you can just shrink that volume and add that space to c drive.
 
1: I have no idea what a network attached storage is but will do some research to find out

2: don't use IE, and i don't install updates, i made that adjustment when installing windows

Also, yeah My C Drive was split into a D Drive. I know I can shrink my d and extend my C, but the thing is from my research on hard drive management it says that the extended drive has to be to the immediate "right" of the drive you want extended. so if i shrink my d drive, the new drive (let's all it E), will show up to the immediate right of my d drive, and thus be in-accessible by my C drive (correct me if im wrong)


3: Yeah you're right, i'm kicking myself in the butt right now, but i really don't know what to do. I will check out system restore for the time being
 
I think with a GParted Live BootCD you can shrink and extend partitions, independant from windows.

Also why did you only use such a small amount (33GB) for your C:\ Drive? A full windows 7 install takes about 16GB on it's own.

I've never really understood why people create partitions when they only plan on using one OS, it won't speed anything up as it's all on the one HDD anyway.
 
I've used EASUS Partition Manager to adjust partitions.

And Illuminator, you also have to take into account for size of the Master File Table (MFT). The MFT only grows with each file you add to your computer.
 
Regardless of partition size, to get a swing in free space of 4.5GB on the programs drive is not normal. When the low space message comes up, if you list files *.* on C drive and arrange by modified date, the culprits must be at the most recent end of the list. You indicate this is a temporary situation, ("sometimes" - your quote), so it must files that are being added to since the last time you had max free space and later disappear.

I would have thought it would be fairly obvious and easy to resolve. At worst, make a list of folder sizes (screenshot or WinDirStat) at max free space and repeat at minimum.

Edit: Utilities like Partition Magic can move space from D to C. I'm fairly sure I've done it myself.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top