C:\ Drive is filling up, and its not a restore point problem

[Tmec]

I just got this computer, (with Windows 8.1) and the 60gb internal drive is filling at an alarming rate. When I first booted the computer, it showed only 20gbs of space, even though I hadn't done anything on the computer and windows only takes up 14.8gbs. I haven't visited any sketchy sites (this is my gaming computer), and I have almost nothing downloaded. I keep running CCleaners, which clears off a little bit (maybe 5-20mbs each time), and I have cleared the restore points. I even run my browsers out of my external hard drive! I cant think of anything else. It's getting quite frustrating. Please help!!!

 

[Inkiad]

It can be memory dump files and or windows error report file. Did you tried cleaning them?

 

[13thmonkey]

download windirstat and look at the content through this.

 

[Onus]

A program like WinDirStat can tell you what's taking up your space.

Edit: ninja'ed by a Monkey!

 

[TJ Hooker]

Some space (I think on the order of GBs) will be reserved to enable the hibernate/fast startup in Win8, can disable it if you want to free up some space.

Is your system a pre-built, or did you build it yourself? If it's the former, it could have a bunch of bloatware on it taking up space.

Also, remember that a drive advertised as 60 GB will only show about 56 GB of space on your computer. And there will be a couple hidden partitions for recovery and stuff taking up some space.

 

[Hlsgsz]

Go into file explorer's folder options and in "view" uncheck "hide protected operating system files" and toggle "show hidden folder files and drives". Now on C: you will see a large file called hiberfil.sys adn another pagefile.sys(this was so you know whats taking up the space).
You can get read of the former by disabling hibernation witch implies also disabling fast boot. To do this open an admin command prompt and type "powercfg -h off". TO reenable it repeat with "on" at the end.

Also, you should do a windows update files cleanup(these can pile up) by goind to "disk cleanup" the selecting "clean up system files" and checking all options(this will take a while)

Last but not least windows has probably downloaded about 4 gigs to upgrade you to windows 10. There are multiple guides online on how to clean this but it is not permanent as they will be redownloaded without your permission.

Honestly, i strongly suggest you take advantage of Microsoft's offer and do a clean install of W10 with your W8 key(yes, that is in line with ms's offer). I emphasise doing thsi and doing it as a clean install as W10 has some new very smart compression mechanisms(not the kinds that hinder performance, dont worry) taht fire automatically on small drives ans save alot of space. Basically, even a 64bit W10 fresh install takes about 13-15gb and that includes everything.

Cheers!

 

[wpgwpg]

There's a nice little program called TREESIZE you can download that will tell you everything about your hard drive use. Get the free version - it's all you need. I've got some partitions of 48 GB running various versions of Windows for test purposes, but for every day use I think 60 GB is too small to be practical. One thing that can gradually consume space is Windows Updates, I don't know if you've considered that possibility. When you can buy a 1 TB hard drive for as little as $40 these days, why skimp on C: space?

Good luck.

 

[enjoypb]

I experienced QGIS making enormous sized .tif files I found in my C:\Users\myUserName\AppData\Local\Temp folder.

I have been using Qgis2Web on a relatively large dataset (100k points in California Counties w/ Zip Codes) and my computer would keep filling. When I launched the Q2W plugin, it would just hang, the disk would fill and I had to start doing the disk maintenance stuff thinking my Dropbox was the issue.

In any case I had four maps at 52GB in total. The good news is I have 50GB of space left, the bad news is I have no idea why it's creating these .tifs in the first place, and I can't get the Q2W working.

 

[Onus]

Closing necrotic thread.