Author Topic: Shrinking disk space  (Read 1938 times)

Offline andrewalston

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Re: Shrinking disk space
« Reply #9 on: Wednesday 21 February 18 19:04 GMT (UK) »
There are a few housekeeping things which may help you narrow things down. No downloads needed, and these work on most versions of Windows.

First, run Disk Clean-up (under Windows Administrative Tools). That will tidy up the obvious places. The "System files" bit includes a tidying of Windows Update, which can take quite a bit.

To locate the folder hogging the space, use File Explorer (I use Windowskey E).
1. First turn on "Hidden files & folders". This can be found under View, Options - there is a tick box in the View tab of the dialog that brings up.
2. Browse to the root of the C: drive.
3. Select the first half of the visible folders.
4. Right-click and select Properties.
5. Windows adds up the sizes of all the files in the selected folders.
6. Repeat for the other half of the folders.
7. Narrow down the folder by selecting half of the "big" half.
8. Once you have found the offending folder, browse into it and repeat the process.
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Offline hallmark

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Re: Shrinking disk space
« Reply #10 on: Wednesday 21 February 18 21:05 GMT (UK) »
2 years ago when I bought a new desktop computer with a 1000gb hard disk it filled up very quickly because the default Windows setting was to keep a backup copy of every file that was changed every time I changed it. The company I bought it from talk to me through how to disable this feature. Sadly it's so long ago that I can't remember what I did but it's something that you should look into.

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Offline AngusMcCoatup

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Re: Shrinking disk space
« Reply #11 on: Wednesday 21 February 18 21:12 GMT (UK) »
There are a few housekeeping things which may help you narrow things down. No downloads needed, and these work on most versions of Windows.

First, run Disk Clean-up (under Windows Administrative Tools). That will tidy up the obvious places. The "System files" bit includes a tidying of Windows Update, which can take quite a bit.

To locate the folder hogging the space, use File Explorer (I use Windowskey E).
1. First turn on "Hidden files & folders". This can be found under View, Options - there is a tick box in the View tab of the dialog that brings up.
2. Browse to the root of the C: drive.
3. Select the first half of the visible folders.
4. Right-click and select Properties.
5. Windows adds up the sizes of all the files in the selected folders.
6. Repeat for the other half of the folders.
7. Narrow down the folder by selecting half of the "big" half.
8. Once you have found the offending folder, browse into it and repeat the process.

Bit of a long-winded process when something like TreeSize Free will do the same thing for you. It will also include files such as the system hibernation file which File Explorer may not show by default.

Offline Malcolm Bull

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Re: Shrinking disk space
« Reply #12 on: Thursday 22 February 18 15:52 GMT (UK) »
Thanks.  I downloaded TreeSize and intend to play around with it at the weekend

Regards

PS (Friday morning) I took a look this morning and was able to free up over half the space on the SSHD.  Amazing! and everything else seems to work OK.  Thank you again
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