Hard Disc Eating Up Space Over Time

[Shannon Chou]

Hi everyone in LTT, I have a problem here, my laptop is taking up space over time as the title stated. I did store anything that large when I use, just some watch some videos from my portable hdd and browse the web.

Uploaded 3 Images,

1)  error1.png (first picture) shows that the C: drive's space before I restart my laptop. I actually did not use up much space and disk cleanup shows no extra files that large for me to clean. Note the time.

2) error2.png (second picture) shows my actual space usage after I restart. Note the time too.

3) this ipg file (third picture) is the picture I took from my phone. When you noted the time in 1 and 2, you will find out it took a long time to restart. This picture shows the loading screen before it powered down for restart. When it powered down and boot back, all is normal. No windows update or anything, it just take up this long time.

So, can anyone help me on this problem? I try Google-ing for the solution and mostly just ask me install some program and do some cleanup on the temporary files or whatever it is, but do not want to install those programs.

Thanks for helping in advance  

 

[NMS]

Looks like you have Windows Update files on that disk.

Can you provide a screenshot of disk C and its folders?

[Shannon Chou]

 

12 minutes ago, NMS said:

Looks like you have Windows Update files on that disk.

Can you provide a screenshot of disk C and its folders?

I don't know its even windows update or whatever it is, during restart it does not show installing updates as it should when there's an update. Btw, I found this Windows folder interesting, The size on disk, total size, and total files keep on increasing and its not tally.

[NMS]

You have hidden files/folders. Go to View > Hidden Files at the top of the window. You need to display those.

[Xander Cousins]

So from the Screenshots, after restart the Hard drive space is normal and actually adding up to The size the files that you posted after the primary post.

 

The thing about your Windows File not adding up to what is shown could be the possibility that it has merged an old.windows folder into it as the 'actual' size seems to be double of what it wants to show you. Either that or it takes that long to read the whole windows folder.

 

My assumption is role the system back to a previous update and see what the folder looks like then. If the same you might have to do a reinstall of the windows Which most likely will CREATE A OLD.WINDOWS folder that you'll have to remove to free up space.

[Shannon Chou]

1 hour ago, NMS said:

You have hidden files/folders. Go to View > Hidden Files at the top of the window. You need to display those.

Sorry for late reply, here's the hidden files. Just got back home from campus, I'm now monitoring my network to see if its really windows update.

1 hour ago, Alex Colson said:

So from the Screenshots, after restart the Hard drive space is normal and actually adding up to The size the files that you posted after the primary post.

 

The thing about your Windows File not adding up to what is shown could be the possibility that it has merged an old.windows folder into it as the 'actual' size seems to be double of what it wants to show you. Either that or it takes that long to read the whole windows folder.

 

My assumption is role the system back to a previous update and see what the folder looks like then. If the same you might have to do a reinstall of the windows Which most likely will CREATE A OLD.WINDOWS folder that you'll have to remove to free up space.

oh god... please no... I just reset this laptop 1 week ago and I just let it install whatever updates it required in Windows Update. At first when it notify me that my storage is low and want me to clear old windows files, I followed the steps given and had manually deleted Windows.old folder. So it actually happens before I deleting Windows.old. This problem already happened a few times after I reset and installed those programs I need only. Not really sure if it started on day 1 after I reset because there's a few restarts after some program installation and Windows Updates.

[LogicalDrm]

How big is your hibernation.sys file? Thats one to keep space locked. Also use WinDirSat or similar to better find folders that are causing issues.

[Shannon Chou]

4 minutes ago, LoGiCalDrm said:

How big is your hibernation.sys file? Thats one to keep space locked. Also use WinDirSat or similar to better find folders that are causing issues.

ok, so I think you mean that setting my laptop to sleep might cause this problem? I'll check it tomorrow when I use my laptop (I don't use it at home). Btw, do you mean WinDirStat, found its download site, will try it tomorrow if it builds up again when I use my laptop. Thank you for suggestion.

[LogicalDrm]

3 minutes ago, Shannon Chou said:

ok, so I think you mean that setting my laptop to sleep might cause this problem? I'll check it tomorrow when I use my laptop (I don't use it at home). Btw, do you mean WinDirStat, found its download site, will try it tomorrow if it builds up again when I use my laptop. Thank you for suggestion.

When you put it to sleep, all data is saved to hibernation file. Windows doesn't automatically erase that file after waking pc. It just over-writes file at next sleep. I'm not sure if they have fixed that on Win10.

[Shannon Chou]

2 minutes ago, LoGiCalDrm said:

When you put it to sleep, all data is saved to hibernation file. Windows doesn't automatically erase that file after waking pc. It just over-writes file at next sleep. I'm not sure if they have fixed that on Win10.

Yeah, I'm aware of that, but I've been putting this laptop to sleep (not hibernate, I did not even enable hibernate) since the hard disc started slowing down 1 year ago (its a 5 year old laptop btw) and I need it to use it when I need it (can't afford my lecturer to wait for me till it boots up). But this building up never happen till I reset it 1 week ago. It might be this hibernation file going haywire, but I notice something in my hard disc got bigger and bigger according to its up time (when I'm really using it, not sleep). Its like the longer I use, the bigger it gets, the smaller my free space.

[LogicalDrm]

3 hours ago, Shannon Chou said:

Yeah, I'm aware of that, but I've been putting this laptop to sleep (not hibernate, I did not even enable hibernate) since the hard disc started slowing down 1 year ago (its a 5 year old laptop btw) and I need it to use it when I need it (can't afford my lecturer to wait for me till it boots up). But this building up never happen till I reset it 1 week ago. It might be this hibernation file going haywire, but I notice something in my hard disc got bigger and bigger according to its up time (when I'm really using it, not sleep). Its like the longer I use, the bigger it gets, the smaller my free space.

Well, WinDirSat should help to find out what folders are the ones taking most space. It might be Windows itself, but I lean more onto some software causing that.

[Shannon Chou]

Hi guys, sorry for late update, here's an update for my problem, been quite busy lately. So here's the screenshot and I've done scanning using WinDirStat as seen in the screenshot below. So, what can I do next to further investigate this problem? It just makes no sense.