Is there a way to free up space on my HDD without deleting my stored files?

[Fuzzball]

(I actually have a laptop but I'm sure this question is applicable to all PCs.)

I have a laptop with a SSD (for a few programs and the Windows 7 OS) and a (supposedly) 750GB HDD as my D: drive. I store all my personal files, pictures, music and Steam games on drive D:. When I look in Computer on Explorer it says for my D: drive I have 98.7GB free of 698GB. However, I don't think I'm using up that much space!

If I open up D: there are just three folders (And a bunch of random install files?): Config.Msi and the two I created, Programs and Fuzzball's Saved Files. Config.Msi takes up 0 bytes. Fuzzball's Saved Files (containing my pictures, music and documents) takes up 75GB. And Programs (where I keep Steam and Origin games) takes up 420GB. So I should only be using about 500GB of my HDD, not 600GB! Where has the other 100GB gone? I can't think that it would be system files, as those would be on C:. Are there a lot of hidden folders I'm not seeing?

Are there some procedures I can do to free up some space on my HDD? I'm worried I'll run out of space soon and I haven't even had the laptop for a year! Should I run disk defragmenter? Should I right click on D: and "Compress this drive to save disk space"? What about Disk Cleanup? What does that do?

Is there actually nothing I can do and I need to be more careful with my remaining space?

I also just noticed that if I run Disk Defragmenter, it comes up with three drives: C: (which I know to never defragment), D: and "System Reserved" (which is 3% fragmented). Should I defragment that? What is it?

 

[TheGeeza]

Run disk cleanup or ccleaner and delete the files you don't need from the list it gives you. Be careful not to delete anything important. Running the defrag couldn't hurt either. Also run a virus scan just in case there are some nasties on there hiding away somewhere.

 

[ubuysa]

Firstly, before messing with you data disk at all, I strongly suggest you take a full backup of all your data on there. Whilst all the tools I'm going to suggest are perfectly safe, if there are any problems with your disk it's not impossible that your data could be corrupted by these (or any) disk tools.

After taking a backup and before you run any other tools on you hard disk it's important to check that you don't have any file system problems (and you might have from what you describe). The easiest way to run the Windows disk check is to open up a command prompt and enter the command "chkdsk /f" but without the quotes (note the space between chkdsk and /f). You may be asked to reboot, do so if asked and chkdsk will run on rebooting. At the end it will tell you whether any errors were found and whether they were corrected or not. If errors were found you should check that all your data is still intact and if any errors were not corrected I suggest you reformat the drive and restore the data backup you took at the start.

To find out what is taking up your disk space download WinDirStat from http://windirstat.info/, this handy and free tool will graphically show you exactly what is occupying your disk space.

The Windows disk cleanup allows you to select what files to clean, you can safely select all the boxes you see in there. For a better junk file cleaner download Ccleaner from http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner. This is a highly customisable, and free, tool that will delete junk files and folders that you no longer need.

Defrag is also an important tool to run regularly. Files are written on the disk wherever there is space available so whilst you can see 98.7GB free that space might be scattered all over the disk, it's not necessarily in one lump. Defrag will ensure all of the files are contiguous and it tries to gather all the free space into one or more large areas too. Run the defrag after all the other cleanup tools.

Do NOT run defrag on your SSD, it does no good at all and just reduces the life of your SSD. Also do NOT run any cleanup or defrag tools on the System Reserved partition, this should be left alone.

 

[Everon]

Two things to check:

Right click your recycle bin and go preferences and see just how much space is reserved for the D:\ drive, I bet its at least 10% if not more which for 700+GB is ridiculous. Select "custom" size and put in your own amount, I tend to feel around 500mb is ample but its your preference.

System restore, just how much is reserved for both of your drives? Take a look and reduce how much its asking to use. Personally I don't feel the need for more than 5% but again it is your preference.

People always forget to check those two things and they can be a massive space hog. Also don't forget that you can compress files that are just for archiving on the D:\ drive, obviously don't do this for folders that you have games or movies in but for seldom used things like texts or pics it can save a bit of space.

Hope it helps, Jay.

 

[Fuzzball]

Thank you for the thorough and helpful answers! I'm backing up my data at the moment, and am going to try some of your suggestions when I have the time.

I immediately notice that if I right click on the Recycle Bin, click Properties and select my D: drive in the list, it says its "Maximum size" is 37818MB. Does this mean this amount of space on my D: drive is constantly unavailable for me to store files on? I guess I can reduce that to free up some space!

How do I check how much space is reserved for System Restore? What effect would reducing the available space have on my computer? I tend to use System Restore as a first thing to do whenever my computer starts acting up.

What does compressing contents of a folder actually do? If I do it to a folder with photos in it, am I still up to click on them and look at them instantly when I want to?

EDIT: I just tried reducing the size listed when I right click, Properties of the Recycle Bin, and it made no difference to how much space it said my drives had. Am I doing something wrong?

 

[Everon]

Ok so in answer to your last post, yes that space is reserved by and for the recycle bin so shrink it down by clicking on custom size and specify the size you desire.

As for the system restore point resizing, see here: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows7/how-much-disk-space-does-system-restore-require

The compressing of archived files (pics,texts and stuff you seldom use) saves you some space, not a vast amount but it all adds up. Windows 7 will uncompress the files when you open them without you even knowing it, meaning that yes the files are still fully available to you. As I said it is not advisable to compress games or movies as it can slow them down when playing the media.

Hope that answered your questions, Jay

 

[Fuzzball]

Ok so in answer to your last post, yes that space is reserved by and for the recycle bin so shrink it down by clicking on custom size and specify the size you desire.

I appreciate you answering my question, but when I changed the allocated space in Recycle Bin, then clicked Computer, it still said my drives had the same amount of free space as they had before. Am I doing something wrong?

Also, I can't get "chkdsk /f" to work. I typed in exactly that (without quotations) and a black window briefly flashed up but disappeared too quickly for me to read it or do anything. Something odd going on there.

 

[Fuzzball]

OK, so I just ran that WinDirStat program and it seems to be saying that my C: drive's total size is about 113GB, which just about matches up with what is stated when I click Computer, but that my D: drive has a total of 594GB. The Computer window says D: should have 698GB and I thought I was buying a 750GB HDD! Why is there a 100GB discrepancy? Where has it gone!?