Windows 8: 30 GB of Space Missing

[Zogbar]

I recently uninstalled about 30 GB worth of games from a ssd drive to free up space, but after uninstalling the programs my computer still tells me the space is being used. When I look in the drive, there is nothing there that's taking up the space. I even tried running searches for large files and hidden files, but nothing appeared. There's nothing in the recycling bin, and I tried clearing system restore data and doing disk cleanups.

This is a ton of space, so I would really like to know how I can get it back. Thank you.

 

[blazorthon]

Maybe some registry issues are going on from registry keys being left over after the installation. You could try using a registry cleaner like ccleaner to see if it find anything.

 

[Zogbar]

Can registry files really take up that much space? Also, something I should probably mention; the hard drive is an SSD. Could this be a problem as well?

 

[PsyKhiqZero]

open file explorer, view and check the hidden items box. then go to c:\users\default\appdata see how large that folder is. Also make sure if you don't use hibernate to delete the hibernation file.

Open cmd prompt as admin. type "powercfg -h off" without the quotation marks.

see if that gets back some of your space.

 

[blazorthon]

Can registry files really take up that much space? Also, something I should probably mention; the hard drive is an SSD. Could this be a problem as well?

The registry files don't take that much space, but an error can stop the system from knowing that all of that space was freed up.

 

[spdgt87501]

I realize he probably already tried this but a hard/forced shutdown and reboot may clear the registry data system error.

 

[spdgt87501]

I also just noticed someone else has a similar issue. You might want to watch there thread for solutions.

Missing 20GB from my SSD drive (No not page or hib file)

 

[Reser]

Just solved my own identicle problem.

Problem was a Windows Bug with Nvidia drivers.

Check your C:\wndows\System32\Config folder

Also check my thread http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/298720-14-missing-20gb-drive-page-file


and the related Microsoft thread http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w8itprogeneral/thread/6efbf453-aec3-4cfc-b6e0-de9dc5e6a99c/

 

[Zogbar]

Wow, thanks everyone. Reser, I think our computers are expressing similar symptoms for different issues. My config folder wasn't nearly as big as yours. Also, I have an AMD graphics card, so I don't have any Nvidia drivers installed.

Turns out my windows folder is taking up 17.8 GB, and when I went through all the subfolders I found out that the biggest culprit was the WinSxS folder, which was taking up about 10 GB. Apparently that folder is supposed to get big, and there's not much to be done there.

Having done a more thorough search of all the folders, I've found out where most of the space has gone. However, there is still 9.2 GB unaccounted for, which is a much smaller issue than 30 GB, but still a significant chunk of my SSD space that I'd like have available.

 

[Reser]

Have you ran WinDirStats or SpaceSniffer to find out where your space is?

SpaceSniffer ran in Administrator mode found my space.

http://www.uderzo.it/main_products/space_sniffer/

 

[Zogbar]

Hey, it worked! Thanks Reser.

PsyKhiqZero, you were right about the hibernation file, that was a big chunk of the missing space. I had been a little nervous about shutting it off as I didn't know what it was for, but now I know.

Another part was the page file, but I guess that's something that shouldn't be tampered with.

 

[Zogbar]

Best answer selected by Zogbar.