Hard drive issues!

Hey everyone,

So, I recently finished installing Windows 8.1 on my machine, and I've run into a bit of a headache, so I was hoping some of you tech wizards might be able to point me in the right direction—thanks in advance!

I can't quite put my finger on what's going wrong, but it feels like gigabytes of storage have just vanished into thin air from my C: drive. My setup has two partitions, C and D, and while everything looks perfectly fine on the D: drive, my C: drive is reporting only 108 GB of free space out of a total 273 GB. The thing is, I haven't really installed anything on this computer yet, aside from Windows itself and one single game that only takes up about 4.5 GB.

After doing a little digging online, I stumbled upon a scanning tool that checks all sorts of system data, and it led me to the conclusion that there are these mysterious files taking up a massive amount of room. We're talking about individual files ranging anywhere from 2 GB to as much as 19 GB, so I'm attaching a screenshot here in the hopes that someone can help me out, since I'm definitely not an expert when it comes to PC hardware and software.

Screenshot: http://s8.postimg.org/45ngxmi45/xxx.png

My main question is, would it be safe for me to go ahead and delete those files?

Do you happen to know which specific folder those files are sitting in on the hard drive?

😲

Man, this is turning into a total epidemic. Everywhere I look online, people are freaking out because their C: drive is filling up out of nowhere. Just look at how many people are talking about it right here on this forum.

It’s happening to me too. I actually just swapped out my old hard drive recently, so I’ve been super careful about what I download or install because I really want to keep my PC as clean as possible.

But seriously, I’m seeing my C: drive fill up... like, at a rate of roughly 1GB every 4 or 5 days.(😲) And the kicker? I haven't downloaded or installed a single thing! Technically, it’s not a huge deal since I have a massive amount of free space left on my C: drive, but I'm still sitting here thinking, wtf?

We might need to hire a private investigator just to figure out what the hell is going on. 😠

...you see people dropping explanations and advice left and right all the time... honestly, just read through those kinds of posts... most of the time they're talking about stuff like "System Restore," which you can actually cap at, say, 5% of your drive instead of letting it hog 100%... plus, there’s always a ton of digital junk piling up that you can just clear out with something like CCleaner...

+1

wearymason4 said:...you see explanations popping up all the time about what steps you should take... if you just take a look at posts like that, you'll see they usually suggest tweaking your System and Security settings, like limiting the space used for a system restore to maybe 5% of your hard drive instead of letting it hog 100%, plus there's always a bit of digital junk you can clear out using something like CCleaner...

It turns out the culprit really was the system restore settings. 😵 Max usage had somehow been set to 140 GB, and honestly, I have no clue how that happened because I never even touched that setting. So, I just went ahead and clicked "delete all restore points from this drive," and suddenly all those gigabytes were back in my pocket. 👍 A huge thank you to everyone for the help and for all the great advice in the comments. 👍

I'm still such a total newbie when it comes to this kind of stuff, so what can you do? 🤦

electricsailor2 said:Yeah, turns out the issue was with System and Security. 😵 Max usage was set to 140 GB—honestly, no clue why, I never even touched those settings. So, I just hit "delete all restore points from this drive" and boom, all that space came right back. 👍 Thanks a ton for the help and thanks to everyone for weighing in! 👍

I'm such a total newbie when it comes to this stuff, what can you do, right? 🤦

Where do I actually find that System and Security setting to cap the storage so I can do the same thing?

Joshua Kim39 said:Where can I actually find those System Restore settings, and how do I go about shrinking the amount of disk space it uses so I can free up some room?

To get there, you just need to head over to the Control Panel and select System and Security, then click on System, and once you're there, look for System protection on the left-hand side where you'll see an option to Configure restore settings, manage disc space, and delete restore points. Just click on Configure... and you can adjust everything exactly how you want it. 😁

Joshua Kim39 said:😲

Man, this has turned into a total epidemic lately. Everywhere I look online, people are pointing out how their C: drive just seems to fill itself up out of nowhere. Just take a look at how many people are talking about it right here on this forum alone.

I’m running into the exact same thing myself. I actually just swapped out my hard drive recently, so I’ve been being super careful about what I download or install because I really want to keep my PC as clean as possible for as long as I can.

But even so, what I’m noticing is that my C: drive keeps filling up... like, roughly at a rate of 1GB every 4 or 5 days (😲), even though I haven't downloaded or installed a single thing onto it. Technically speaking, it isn't a massive deal for me since I have a literal truckload of free space left on my C: drive, but I still find myself wondering, wtf?

We might honestly need to collectively hire a private investigator to figure out wtf is actually going on here. 😠

So you're saying you lose a gig every 4 or 5 days? Well, I've been keeping an eye on 'System Restore' lately, and I noticed that the 'Current usage' was sitting at 11.4 MB this morning, and now it’s already jumped up to 362.30 MB. Hmm, maybe that's where those gigs are disappearing to, but hey, I'm certainly no expert on these things, so who knows...

System Restore tends to eat up a ton of hard drive space if it's enabled—and it really all comes down to how much you've allocated for it. Once you've cleared out those old restore points, you can easily grab CCleaner to sweep up any leftover junk and free up some extra room.

Larry Ortiz5 said:The System Restore feature tends to be the biggest space hog on your hard drive if it's currently active, and how much room it takes up really just depends on whatever percentage you have allocated for it. Once you've gone ahead and cleared out those old restore points, you can easily run CCleaner to scrub away even more junk and reclaim some extra storage space.

Alright, thanks for the tip.😁 I've been using CCleaner for quite a while now, though lately, I've actually found myself leaning more towards Glary Utilities.👍

electricsailor2 said:Just head over to the Control Panel and hit 'System and Security.' From there, click on 'System,' then look for 'System protection' on the left side. You'll see an option to 'Configure restore settings, manage disc space, and delete restore points.' Just click 'Configure...' and tweak things however you want. 😁

I just checked mine and it’s already set to 5% (about 5.85GB). That’s the "max usage" limit, and I'm currently sitting at 5.35GB used.

So does that mean it'll just fill up that last 0.50GB and then stop?

Joshua Kim39 said:😲

Man, this has turned into a total epidemic. Everywhere I look online, people are complaining that their C: drive just fills itself up out of nowhere. Just look at how many people are talking about it right here on this forum alone.

It’s happening to me too. I actually just swapped out my hard drive recently, so I’ve been being really careful about what I download or install because I really want to keep my system as clean as possible for as long as I can.

But even then, I’m noticing my C: drive filling up... like, at a rate of maybe 1GB every four or five days(😲), even though I haven't downloaded or installed a single thing lately. Technically, it isn't a huge deal since I have a massive amount of free space left on my C: drive, but I still find myself wondering, wtf?

We might need to collectively hire a private investigator just to figure out what on earth is going on. 😠

The truth is that people just don't know how to use a computer properly, specifically when it comes to configuring certain settings. This isn't some mysterious epidemic; it's just a lack of technical knowledge.

so, what kind of antivirus are you running these days?

Lawrence Barnes64 said:what kind of antivirus are you running?

🤦...doesn't matter. We already nailed down what caused that spike. Otherwise, people would just claim it's because new PCs and fresh OS installs spend those first few days downloading a ton of background updates for apps and the system itself... plus there's the whole thing about how we can limit things like cache and history in our browsers.

wearymason4 said:🤦...it doesn't even matter at this point because they've already figured out what actually caused that spike, otherwise people would just keep making excuses, claiming it's just all those Windows updates or background software installations running on day one of a new PC setup, or you know, those settings we can tweak in Chrome or Safari regarding cache and browsing history and whatever else...

oops 😵