Learn More
Resend Email
3
Arlekin
8y

Anyone encountered issue with vanishing hdd space on Windows 7 ??

My father has this issue: amount of free and used space doesn't add up to the correct total. The problem slowly but steadily worsens.
I tried to help to the best of my systems knowledge but no cigar.
We checked sizes of everything with windirstat so we are somewhat sure that used space is calculated correctly.
We ran native disk cleaning, the trash is empty and pagefile is set to static size.

Honestly i ran out of ideas, last one is take a peek at the disk in something like gparted but i doubt I'll learn much.

I'm counting someone here will help me...
Google failed me, only devRant can save me now!

undefined

divided we fall

united we stand

help please
Favorite
Ranter
Comments
  • 0
    8y
    Tried CCleaner?
  • 0
    8y
    Solution: Linux
  • 2
    8y
    @Lel00 just logout please... I'm so tired of seeing your kind..
  • 0
    8y
    Windows 10 update takes ip a lot of space
  • 0
    8y
    @Charmgoggles
    well but its 7, and given our home net speed i doubt it downloaded much without anyone noticing

    @ScribeOfGoD
    Forgotten to mention i used it, btw it's of sadly few of its kind that are legit

    @KnightsOfCode
    That's interesting idea, didn't know fragmentation could be a factor in such thing, gotta try that.

    If anyone has any further suggestions, please, don't be shy
  • 0
    8y
    @Arlekin As an IT student we have noticed this issue is generally due to repeated formats and partitions.

    Diskpart on Windows nowhere near perfect and little bits get lost every time we create a new partition and remove it. The problem escalates the more partitions you have
  • 0
    8y
    Some stuff works OK, but the only way we found to recover 100% of disk space was to wipe the entire drive and reinstall
  • 1
    8y
    The winsxs folder is often the culprit and gets excluded from disk cleanups by default in Win7. There's a setting you can change (and a patch if you dont have the setting) to include it.

    For background: The winsxs folder is used to hold updates for uninstall and system tracking. Deleting files manually can (and will!) wreck your day. Trouble is that it grows over time. Without the patch there was no way to safely reclaim that space (which I've seen exceed 40gb in some cases).

    I'd also recommend using TreeSize to scope out disk usage and find out where the space is going.
  • 0
    8y
    @RexOmni
    There is one partition IIRC and there wasn't much formats done
    @TheVMan
    Seems interesting, I'll definitely check that. Thanks!
  • 0
    8y
    @Arlekin after reading through, it was I that misunderstood. Hard drive space is being taken up, not overall shrinking.

    My bad.
  • 1
    8y
    Look in %WINDIR%\SoftwareDistribution\Download. That's where windows update puts all the installers and you can safely delete everything in there.
  • 0
    8y
    I found some anti viruses and programs can have hidden log files that take up gigs over time. Usually in the root directory. Show hidden files if they aren't already.
    From memory I've had the problem with kaspersky and a homebrewed app
  • 0
    8y
    I know Windows hard-links update installers and drivers and crap in multiple places for compatibility, but the files have the same inode and don't take up extra space, and when calculating free space it might get confused and add the space twice/however many hard-links to the same inode exist.
  • 0
    8y
    What about when windows finds space that isn't even there?
    https://www.devrant.io/rants/345528
Related Rants
devRant © 2021 Hexical Labs LLC
Privacy Policy  |  Terms of Service
Add Comment