Windows – Lost disk space in Windows 7, cannot find the missing

disk-spacewindows 7

My hard drive is complaining it is low on disk space, but a strange thing seems to be happening:
Explorer reports 10Gb of available space (on a 120 Gb hard disk), chkdsk in the command prompt does the same but if I use a disk space tool such as SpaceSniffer or WinDirStat, only 50Gb of data is found.

My guess is that there somehow is a hold on a large block of disk space (but that's just a guess) because of a prior very large (40 Gb) download attempt that didn't complete.

There isn't 40Gb of files on the drive (hidden or visible), yet Explorer insists that something is there. How can I claim back this hard disk drive (without formatting my hard disk)?

SpaceMonger is providing a clue, reporting four unscannable folders which add up to 43Gb:

  • C:\RRBackups
  • C:\System Volume Information
  • C:\Windows\Csc\v2.06
  • C:\Windows\System32\LogFiles\Wmi\RtBackup

Does anybody know what these folders are for, and how I can claim back at least some space?

Restore point claims about 4Gb, so that doesn't seem to be the main problem.

Best Answer

C:\RRBackups: Weekly image of the whole drive (?!?) http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/topic/thinkpad-rrbackups-and-disk-space

C:\System Volume Information: System Restore and Previous Versions.

C:\Windows\Csc: Client side cache, used in Offline Files.

No clue what the last one is.

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