120GB Hard disks suddenly full on Windows 7

[mikkydoos]

Hi all,

 

I've come back to work after being off since November to a load of machines that have full hard disks - 120Gb m.2 sata SSD's.

 

My test VM - same image - is 70Gb.

 

 

I've been clearing out old profiles and the Windows temp directory etc but they're still really full.

 

Have there been some whopping updates that have occurred while I've been off ?

 

I cannot find where the space is being taken up.

 

 

Any ideas ?

 

 

Cheers in advance.

 

 

(Jury service before you ask)

[AJWhite1970]

I'd start with running a portable version of WinDirStat from a USB stick on one of the HDD's, that will show you where your space has gone.

 

How are you deleting old profiles? Via File Manager or using DelProf2.exe?

 

There is also this batch file (right click, run as administrator) that will clean out temp folders from live profiles

 

cd /D C:\Users

REM ?-Clean Temp Folder?

for /D %%a in (*.*) do DEL /F /S /Q "%%a\AppData\Local\Temp\*.*"

 

Hope that helps and apologies if that was an egg sucking lesson

Andrew

[3s-gtech]

Windows Update/WSUS can do that if it's broken or breaking, especially if they get turned off mid update. Check the size of the SoftwareDistribution folder and try running PatchCleaner.

[caffrey]

Do you have sibelius or kaspersky ?

[6Foot2]

Are you using Impero?

 

The C:\ProgramData\Impero\ folder has occasionally caused me space issues in the past [although admittedly on smaller HDDs than the ones you are dealing with but, perhaps, worth considering?]

[hallb15]

Is it the hibernation file?

From an elevated command prompt type:

powercfg.exe -h off

[mikkydoos]

Windows Update/WSUS can do that if it's broken or breaking, especially if they get turned off mid update. Check the size of the SoftwareDistribution folder and try running PatchCleaner.

 

Not that @3s-gtech.

 

Only 2Gb

[Arthur]

Windows Installer folder?

 

compact /c /s:C:\Windows\Installer /i

 

Offline files cache?

 

REG ADD "HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\CSC\Parameters" /v FormatDatabase /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f
shutdown /r /t 00

 

Note. This will delete data if it hasn't been synced.

[Fazza]

I'd put my money on it being something to do with whatever is in the System Volume Information folder on the root of the C: drive.

[Michael]

Depending on how old these installs are and what controls you have in place, it could be Windows 7 pulling down Windows 10 upgrades, but that shouldn't happen anymore, given that the free upgrade to Windows 10 has long expired.

[mikkydoos]

Thanks for the replies all...

 

To clarify, no Impero, no kaspersky, no offline files etc.

 

 

Analysing a typical drive (cheers @AJWhite1970 for WinDirStat) looks like..

 

c:\windows\installer == 36Gb

c:\windows\sxs == 20Gb

 

pagefile == 8 Gb ... but thats what it is.

 

 

Thats half the drive.

 

There are a lot of programs on these machines but it seems that the most of the space is taken by Windows .msp's and .msi's.

[Fazza]

Thanks for the replies all...

 

To clarify, no Impero, no kaspersky, no offline files etc.

 

 

Analysing a typical drive (cheers @AJWhite1970 for WinDirStat) looks like..

 

c:\windows\installer == 36Gb

c:\windows\sxs == 20Gb

 

pagefile == 8 Gb ... but thats what it is.

 

 

Thats half the drive.

 

There are a lot of programs on these machines but it seems that the most of the space is taken by Windows .msp's and .msi's.

 

It's a bit of a faff but take full ownership and change permissions of the System Volume Information folder on the root of the C: drive and I'll bet it's the cause of it being full up. It think it's this hidden folder the System Protection gets saved to so you could try turning that off for your C: drive - you wont be able to do any recoveries but you could try it on one and see if that frees up some space.

Edited January 30, 2018 by Fazza

[AJWhite1970]

As @3s-gtech has already suggested, PatchCleaner is going to be your friend to reclaim your missing space if it's the installer directory that is taking up the space

 

PatchCleaner - safely clean your windows installer directory | homedev - software development out of the box

[LeMarchand]

As @3s-gtech has already suggested, PatchCleaner is going to be your friend to reclaim your missing space if it's the installer directory that is taking up the space

 

PatchCleaner - safely clean your windows installer directory | homedev - software development out of the box

 

There's also a portable version on SourceForge, so no need to install it. I've been using the portable version of Wise Disk Cleaner of late, which also seems pretty good.

[Cache]

I had this on one PC a while ago, a Chrome update was failing to install however it generated a few MB log file each time. It tried multiple times regularly leading to it become full quite quickly.

 

Have a look in C:\Windows\Temp

[mikkydoos]

PatchCleaner run over half term on the affected machines. Sorted.

 

Thanks guys for letting me know about that tool :)