Member Avatar for jsun

I have a serious problem with my hardrive memory. I use to have 40gb of 70gb used on my hardrive. Just recently I have begun to receive messages stating that my memory is low. When I checked on it there were 4.4mb of 70gb free. I have no idea where the memory went. I cleared 10 gb off my hardrive and onto an external drive. A week later i was back down to 4mb. I cleared another 2gb which was also chewed up. I have no idea what is going on and I need major help. Doesn't anybody have a clue what is happening and a way to fix it?

  • 4 Contributors
  • 7 Replies
  • 120 Views
  • 1 Week Discussion Span
  • Latest Post Latest Post by ihelp

Dani AI

Generated

described the classic "free space vanishes after I delete files" symptom. Replies from , and covered restore points, temp-file cleaners and malware scans — all useful — but the next step is to find exactly which files or folders are growing so fixes can be targeted.

Run a visual disk-usage scanner (run as Administrator) to get an immediate map of where space is used. WinDirStat is simple and effective: WinDirStat. Scan the problem drive and sort by size; that will show whether a few huge files or many medium files are responsible.

Check these less-obvious causes (they often aren’t cleared by simple cleaners):

  • Hibernation file (hiberfil.sys) and paging file (pagefile.sys).
  • Shadow copy / backup storage used by the OS or imaging software.
  • Large mail stores (PST/OST), VM snapshots, database/log growth, or cloud-sync caches.
    To remove the hibernation file:
    powercfg /hibernate off

    To inspect shadow-copy usage:

    vssadmin list shadowstorage

    (Microsoft reference for those commands: , vssadmin.)

If freed space is immediately re-consumed, watch what is writing in real time. Sysinternals' Process Monitor can show which process creates large files:
Procmon. Also run a filesystem check if sizes look wrong:

chkdsk C: /f

For modern Windows, this PowerShell one-liner lists the top 20 largest files:

Get-ChildItem -Path C:\ -Recurse -Force -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue |
  Where-Object {-not $_.PSIsContainer} |
  Sort-Object Length -Descending |
  Select-Object -First 20 FullName,Length

Use these diagnostics first to pinpoint the offender; fixing the specific culprit (disable hibernation, trim shadow storage, reconfigure backups, or stop a rogue logger) stops the repeated loss of free space.

Recommended Answers

All 7 Replies

Member Avatar for jkdas

Check with the System restore . It maybe talking lot of backups

Member Avatar for jsun

Nope my system restore is clear. At least it appears that way.

Member Avatar for Leo G

Download a program called CCLEANER, it is free and will get rid of a lot of unneeded and temp files. It will also do a good job of refreshing your registry.

Member Avatar for jsun

That program is the same as a disk clean up isn't it? So it can't really clear anything new.

Member Avatar for Leo G

That program is the same as a disk clean up isn't it? So it can't really clear anything new.

Sorry, I'm not familiar with the program you mentioned. It's free, give it a shot. If it doesn't work then get rid of it.

Member Avatar for jsun

Thanks the program cleared 1gb of useless files. Immediately 500mb got chewed back up by something lol. I still don't know why that is happening. Does anybody have any other suggestions?

Member Avatar for ihelp

I had exactly the same problem on my computer. I ran online scans at different websites found viruses and spywares which i than removed. My problem resolved.
But i have seen other computers which also face the sae problem and only a clean installation solves the issue

Be a part of the DaniWeb community

We're a friendly, industry-focused community of developers, IT pros, digital marketers, and technology enthusiasts meeting, networking, learning, and sharing knowledge.