Any idea why my computer is telling me that a harddrive is full?

There's no way that I have this much stuff on here, and if I open that folder, everything in it is small.



Any help is appreciated. Thank you.

 

Please right click on the drive icon, choose properties, and post a screen shot of the pie chart.

 

Try SpaceSniffer or Windirstat. They help show which files are taking up space. Post back with any questions.

 

Seems rather odd that the drive is showing that much usage, especially since you don't seem aware of having added that much data...that, coupled with the "everything in it is small" statement, makes me think there may be something going on with the drive...

You might try running some diagnostics from the HD's manufacturer...

 

Entire contents of the drive:



What are these diagnostic tools?

 

If you right-click on Corey_PC or WindowsImageBackup and select Properties how big are those folders?

I'm not sure if a Manufacturer's Hard Drive diagnostic will show you why you have no free space.

In Computer just right-click the D: drive select Properties and under the Tools tab choose Check Errors and then select both check boxes and OK. That should check the file system to make sure there isn't a flaw with the calculating of free space.

If still the same I would use SpaceSniffer to see if it finds files in either of those two folders. Could WindowsImageBackup have lots of copies of your C: drive?

 

WOW.. Only 162 GB though

 

Hi,

Small is not necessarily small. Even a one byte file takes up a whole Cluster and depending on the size and formatting of the drive can be 32 MB or better. Any file that is not an even multiple of your cluster size wastes the remainder of the last cluster. Some refs list the actual used area of the drive including the waste and others list the actual file sizes added up with no regard for the wasted space.

Jim

 

Can I just delete everything in that folder? Seeing as windows will make another.

 

I really wish you would use either Windirstat or Space Sniffer to see exactly what is on that drive. It has capacity over 400gb. So far you only see 162gb in Winbackup but no individual files in that folder? Corey_PC is also a folder what is its size? Any files in it?

CoreyPC has to be holding some more files to take up the remaining 200+gb. It would be wise to see what they are before ypu choose to delete your backup.

Emptying the WinBackup should be OK but you really should be looking more closely at it to see when the last backup occurred. You also want to know if it contains several backup images or just one large one. It is possible that it is just keeping one copy of your whole C: partition so by emptying the folder you will be deleting the only backup.

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I've never actually used Windows Backup so I'm unsure if Corey_PC is related to that program. Either way you definitely have something that can be deleted from that HD to make more free space. But you want to know what it is before you delete it.

 

Ill try that program when I get home tonight.

 

Well, here it is! Please advise what I should do next.

 

I'd love to help, but the images are a bit blurry.

Not sure if either of those programs will show hidden files and folders, during their scan.

If you were to open your explorer window, hit the ALT key once, click tools, then folder options, then view tab, then select the radial button "Show hidden files, folders, and drives". Click okay.

Does it show more?

Also, I wonder if any system restore folders are in there. Perhaps shadowcopy or recycle bin storage (from Right click recycle bin, properties. Does it show anything interesting there?).

Also, system protection. Click "start" orb, right click computer, then properties, then on left click advanced system settings, then system protection, does D: show up in Proetection settings? If so, you may want to check out how much its saving for that drive.

 

In addition, thanks sach2 for the link to spacesniffer.

I've also used space observer (sql backend) in the past for monitoring space usage over a period of time:

http://www.jam-software.com/spaceobserver/

 

I did enable that option in windows explorer, but nothing else showed up.

 

Hope you can see it now! lol

 

Edit..............

 

Yep, your drive is full, from that picture. Much clearer on my 1920x1200 resolution.

 

Yeah I know. It sucks because an error keeps popping up telling me it's full!

What can I delete?

 

Well, since they are all backup files, delete the old ones. Perhaps the first backup set.

BTW, doing full backups are fine, for good points of restores. Doing incrementals, might be better. Less space used. BUT, you have to restore to the full, then the incrementals. Or differentials. Or data dedup. But, then we are talking about enterprise levels, which I won't go.

 

Yeah, the thing is doing it all automatically though. I haven't done any of these.

Im really not sure what to delete though. In Corey_PC there is only one file that is actually dated.. Here, this is what is in the Windows Backup Image folder.

 

What software do you use to do the backup? You may need to tell that software to delete previous backups.

 

Yes, I can see it now. The dates I guess are in European format.

I don't use Windows Backup but glanced at how it works today. It creates an image backup which will restore your whole C: drive completely--all files included.
It also backs up stuff like User settings, My Documents and My Pictures separately so that you could selectively restore specific files without overwriting the whole OS.

All your backups seem recent one complete image in WindowsImageBackup and several smaller ones of your documents and settings in Corey_PC. You can safely remove all files in Corey_PC except backup set 2009-11-08. That will free up space but it will soon be filled again. It does a backup once a week. So Corey_PC will fill again in 2 mos.

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I think you should consider storing some files on a separate partition rather than your OS ( C: ) partition. I couldn't see exactly what your C: partition holds but it is at least 100gb. Is a lot of that music or video? Games? Some of that could be moved to the D: drive instead of being repeatedly backed up. Or you could create a second partition on your primary HD and move your music or whatever over there so it is not repeatedly copied. You have plenty of space but it is being used up by backups. You probably don't really want to have two copies of all your music files.

Usually all you want backed up is your OS, your program files and any stray documents you have on your C: drive. That should be about 20gb tops. Because you have so much extra stuff on the C: drive each backup takes 160gb which is too big. I think the only way to fix that is move it and get in the habit of storing it separately.

 

I'm not doing it. Windows does it all on it's own.

 

Are you on Vista or XP or Win7?

 

I did delete those files, and now it looks like this. And it didn't clear any space?

 

Win7 RC. Still waiting for my copy of the retail from the manufacturer.

 

Sorry, those little files aren't what I meant. I hadn't seen your post about the individual backups not being visible in the folder. If they are in recycle bin you can go ahead and restore them. We will probably end up deleting them so don't worry if they aren't there.

I only read one google result for deleting old backups and it had a registry edit involved which shouldn't be necessary. I'll have to read a bit more about Windows Backup to advise you any further. Right now I would think if it were possible deleting the whole Corey_PC folder would be OK since you have a full image backup but I'd rather read several pages about how the program works before saying to do it.

There must be a way to limit how much space it is allowed for backups. Taking over an entire 500gb drive makes no sense. You could open the program from the start menu (type in Windows Backup) and look at the settings. See if there are any options. I have Win7 but haven't set it up and because of a project that is taking up ridiculous amounts of space, I don't have enough room to test it to see how it operates first-hand.

I'll look into things and post back tomorrow on what I find.

 

I just went into the WindowsImageBackup folder and then to CoreyPC and deleted everything in it. Got 162GB back. And I did try and load the program, but nothing came up.

Thank you so much for helping me with this.

 

Windows Help will actually give you some good info about the backup program. Just start Help and type Back Up. Read the Frequently Asked Questions. "How much Storage Space..." tells you how to manage space. You can open Back Up and Restore from there.

It looks like you deleted your Image File Backup which is the one I would recommend you actually choose to let Back Up keep creating. It will give you a complete restoration of your C: drive although it will cost you close to 200gb if you continue to keep so many non critical files on C:.

At this point I would go ahead and delete your old file backups. Just clear everything out and start fresh. Or just keep the one file backup set for 2009-11-08.

Then set it up to make only a system image backup. Don't have it make separate file backups. That will limit it to using only the same amount of space your C: drive uses, yet still give you a complete copy of your C: drive if anything ever goes wrong.

Later, if you ever decide you need that 200gb you can turn off the Back Up function altogether. Of course, if you keep less non-critical files like videos/music on your C: drive you can greatly reduce the amount of space Back Up uses in the first place and still be able to reload the OS if necessary.

 

Oh my. Thank you so much Sach! I just deleted teh September and October backup, and the November one is still there. I now have 375gb free on that drive!!

 

fyi on posting pics...if you upload to tinypic.com, it'll reduce the size for posting and allow clicking on to show full size, so you don't have to post more than once. then you can just delete pic from your system if you don't need to keep

 

Thank u 4 this app.:-D

I'm very surprised that after using this, i got from 10% - 11% - 12% and finally 21% of more free space on my comp.!!!!!!!!!!! :-D

again, thank u 4 this great app.