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Question for Quizzical or syntax42 or anyone that can help explain Hard Drive space consumption
I am of average knowledge of PC hardware and have building my own PC's since 1995 but there has been one thing bugging me for years that I would like answered. As a gamer and I know many of you are as well, we install games, play them and then uninstall some of the over time as we migrate to new ones. My problem is that I have multiple 500gb Hd's, my first HD just had the OS on it and games and filled that up so I installed 2 more and made them just for storing my games. As I installed the games on the 2nd and 3rd hard drives I would uninstall it off my primary. Now that I have it all done I do have more HD space on my primary but it is no where close to what it was like after a fresh install. I have like 100 gigs of space taking up somewhere and I have no clue where it is. Normally when this happens I just reformat and clear everything but I was always puzzled by having hidden space still taken up when im looking at my programs list and its pretty bare. Any info you guys could give would be great, thanks.
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Don't forget that MS updates Windows constantly, that will cause your used space to increase.
Additionally, do the following:
1. Make sure your recycle bin is clear
2. Clear out temporary files. Open up Start > Programs > Accessories > Disk Cleanup. I've seen computers with GIGS of stuff just being wasted due to temporary program files, internet files, and other things.
3. Move music, videos, pictures, and downloads to an external. I keep all of my "important" stuff on a 1 TB external.
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If you don't get enough free space by following Roguewiz's instructions, try following:
Even if programs and games are installed to another HD, they often save their setting files and your save games on different directory that's located in OS disc. Many games and programs also don't delete their setting/save game data when you uninstall, but leave it on your dics.
Look at the size of your Program Files, ProgramData, and Users -folders. If one of them takes a huge amount of space, look into it what takes space and you could find you're storing gigabytes of save games for a game you last played years ago.
EDIT: Instead of Disk Cleanup (that Roguewiz adviced using), I'd recommend free version of CCleaner. https://www.piriform.com/CCLEANER
EDIT 2: Check also the contents of your My Documents folder, and what's on your desktop. They are all stored on the same HD with Windows.
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That will depend on which operating system you use and which games you play. If you use Vista, 7, or 8 and/or a lot of 'new' games then many of your save game and configuration files are saved in your C:User... directory tree. Most of those files will be either in your My Documents directory or in AppsLocal and LocalLow directory trees.
Windows Explorer > Go to C:Users and right click on that directory listing > Right click > Properties > and see how many GB are in the tree > Go to your username directory > Do it again > Go to usernameAppsLocalLow > Do it again > Go back to username > Go to My Documents > See how many GB are being used.
That is where you find most of that used space. BE CAREFUL about manually deleting anything in the C:Users... directory tree. The are a lot of configuration files Windows and your applications need in there as well as most of the documents you have created or saved.
CCleaner may or may not help. Space wise the biggest items it will find to delete is anything in the Recycle Bin and old files you downloaded from the internet while viewing various pages. You can get rid of those yourself by emptying the recycle bin and finding out how to remove those old internet files through your browser's settings.
Spacemonger will display everything you have on your harddrive; Love this program when needing to clean some things - be careful of deleting certain sections as it can destroy your computer.
Even if you move game directories, it could be that save game files remain on your primary HD, a game like Skyrim can take up over time several GBs alone. Or temporary download caches which were not cleaned or moved. Steam? Might have multiple game-directories for that? Or video files from FRAPS or other streaming programs? They can get huge fast. Plus all the other situations people here have mentioned.
Are there several users on your PC? Their update/cache/save files perhaps?
A large/multiple restore points from the system perhaps?
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