Mrs B has a 'desktop' PC, a Dell bought maybe 3-4 years ago and running Windows 11.
It has two hard drives, C and D. C I suspect is an SSD intended primarily to host the OS. However it seems that, by default, Windows still directs a lot of stuff to C.
D is massive and all but empty.
As she stores a lot of stuff, including several GB relating to a PhD she was unable to complete, the C Drive is showing as all but full, 14.9 GB of 105 free.
I am though struggling to find which folders are the problem. Users are 22.6 GB, Windows 28.5 and Prog Files 16.3. Nothing else of any significance.
Suspect part of the complication may be to do with it synching to a Google 'cloud' drive.
Thought #1 is to reinstall windows
Can the team suggest other options?
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Mon 9 Jun 25 at 19:52
|
Are you sure it is two physical drives, rather than a single one partitioned into two logical drives?
The latter is not uncommon with suppliers like Dell and others. (And is, IMO, a pain).
If it is such it might be possible to repartition into a single large drive. It can often be done non-destructively, but isn't without risk if you aren't 'savvy'.
I corrected a similar issue for a friend on a Lenovo laptop.
|
|
Pretty sure, checking the properties, there are two. One solid state the other 'conventional'.
|
|
install cc cleaner, it will show you the biggest files youcan move
|
|
Thanks, I'll give that a whirl after work tomorrow.
|
If you can't resolve the reported free space with the size of the contents it may be because you haven't opted to see hidden/system files in Windows Explorer.
Windows Update, just as an example can leave a very large cache of system data hanging around under certain circumstances. Other system tasks may do the same.
If you unhide hidden/system files in Explorer you get a better view of what's causing any issue.
In addition, as you've been in the properties tab of the disk, there should be a 'disk cleanup' tab in the tools section invoked similarly (right click on the disk in Explorer).
First pass of that gives suggestions as to what can be removed and associated sizes and may/should identify any large surplus data. It needs selection of items and second pass to do the actual clean-up, AKA deletion.
|
Did you get anywhere with this, Bromp?
I'm at home now, and could provide a bit more guidance if needed.
A couple of hidden system files for instance could be eating a significant number of GB. The amount will be memory dependent, but with 16Gb of memory the paging file pagefil.sys and hibernation file hyberfil.sys amount to almost 10Gb, and if these are on you C: drive (which is most likely) that capacity can be recovered relatively easily and painlessly.
Hidden files are not shown by default in Windows Explorer, but can be added by ticking the appropriate box in the View tab.
It's also worthwhile doing the disk cleanup check highlighted above.
In Windows Explore, right click the drive, select properties, select General Tab, select Disc-cleanup. This will trawl the disk for potential (system generated) files to delete and show their magnitude. Nothing happens to any files unless you select categories to delete and initiate a clean-up for them.
(above based on Win10, and I doubt Win11 is much different in these aspects)
|
Thanks TnE, was working for last three days and not got time to look at it again.
On my (lengthy!!) to do list for the weekend....
|
Just download WinDirStat and run it, it will tell you the size of everything... totally free and within minutes
windirstat.net/
|
A 105Gb isn't huge but should be ample. I expect you have one physical disk partitioned into two (you can tell by running diskmgmt,msc). You could look at extending the primary partition (using the built-in Windows 11 Diskpart, which is more than a bit clumsy for non-techs) or some other utility to give yourself a bigger C drive but I would think far better to free up space on existing drive by making use of the D drive - for starters move Documents to the D drive (along with redirecting new saves here). Solution 1 here puts it better than I could support.lenovo.com/us/en/solutions/ht513408-how-to-change-the-default-save-locations-in-windows-11
Make sure you have backups before you start moving stuff. After doing it check that has become your default location for newly created documents
Having all your volatile data on the D drive ought to make backing up easier too.
|
I suppose as has been mentioned above you'll also have a couple of significantly sized system files. The memory swap file (virtual memory) will be probably as large as your memory, and can be fairly easily and safely relocated too, sometimes giving a performance uplift is you aren't paging onto the system drive.
Search Control panel for Performance options, go to the Advanced tab then change the Virtual Memory - you can change the size of the file (not really recommended) but more relevantly the location (not to a removable disk though)
|
Thanks Smokie,
Definitely 2 separate discs. Waiting for the analyser to tell me the file sizes on it.
|
Moved on now in that stuff in C:/Users is now on D and C has enough space to breath again!!
Still a lot of tidying to do but I think we're getting there!!
|
Good. If you used WinDirStat it shows you the size of folders and you can drill down to file level.
If you haven't already, you can move the Google Cloud folder to D. It doesn't have to be in your Users directory either.
There's probably not a lot you can do about the size of Windows and Programs folders, except if there are any huge programs that you don't use, uninstall them
|
>> If you haven't already, you can move the Google Cloud folder to D. It doesn't
>> have to be in your Users directory either.
Struggling with how to do that. It's clearly using the C Drive and did previously when I used it at work but I caanot work out where it is or how to move it.
How To items on the web seem to refer to previous iterations of the Google drive.
|
I've previously done this but that could be the old version...
Disconnect your account:
Click on the Google Drive icon in the system tray.
Open Preferences (three-dot menu).
Go to Settings and select Disconnect Account.
Move the folder:
Navigate to your current Google Drive folder (usually C:UsersYourUsernameGoogle Drive).
Move it to your desired location (e.g., E:DocumentsGoogle Drive).
Reconnect Google Drive:
Open Google Drive again and sign in.
When prompted, choose Mirror Files (not Stream).
Select the new folder location.
|
Disc Near Full Issues - tyrednemotional
