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Laptop drive space is full but i can't figure out why


Gump
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Can any computer guru's out there help me. It's my daughters HP Stream laptop, Intel Celeron N2840, running Windows 8.1. She tried to run the windows update to Windows 10 since they lie and say it's free till whenever. We don't need Windows 10 but when she tried to it said there is not enough disk space. 4.71GB available of 21.1GB. She's deleted about everything. I cannot find the files taking up all the space? Disk Cleanup didn't find much of anything. I started in safe Boot but it still shows the same amount of disk space available.

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Use this app and thank me later: https://windirstat.info/

It will show you what is taking up the most space both graphically and by listing. You can then investigate the things sucking up space and see if you want to delete/uninstall them. Priceless app and it's free.

Also, if you have hibernation enabled in Windows, it will set aside disk space for the roughly equivalent capacity of your RAM. In the above app, it shows up as hiberfil.sys. You cannot delete it but you can disable hibernation and it should free up on reboot IIRC. Google it...

Edited by ScubaCinci
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Give any minimum requirements for the upgrade?  Probably takes up additional space than either OS.  I've upgraded mine, but don't remember.  Not sure if I'd do it again, no real improvement, and the drivers for my laptops dedicated graphics don't fully function.  I cannot adjust the brightness of the laptop without disabling a driver, then enabling it after the adjustment.

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Windows is taking up 10gb. Does that seem normal?

I looked at windirstat but don't see any strange program. Recycle bin is empty.

Edited by Gump
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10GB is probably about right.

What I do is go through my directories in Explorer - right-click and pick "Properties". Windows will then tally up all the spaced used up by that folder and sub-folders. So once you find a big folder that says "30GB" got into that directory and start checking the sub-folders to see where that 30GB is coming from.

Time consuming but works :)

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1 hour ago, blue03636 said:

How old is this laptop that it only has a 20gig drive?

Pretty new actually.  The logic behind a hdd that small is with all the streaming and online cloud storage services (GDocs), there is little need for a large local hdd which allows them to set an attractive price for a laptop in the $100-200 range. 20Gb is plenty for the basic young adult pc.

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It's like a year old. If 10gb is normal'ish for windows then i'll call it good.  Got it up to 5.7gb available. Didn't realize Windows takes up that much space. It's designed to use one drive to store documents and pictures. She just uses for Microsoft office programs. I remember when 1GB was HUGE. Guess I'm old. 

 

So I was told WIndows 10 has issues and it's not really only free for a while. I have a TB drive I could download it to, to install, but do you think it's worth it. What will happen is down road she'll be like dad.....I need windows 10 this program won't work and now it cots money. So should I get Windows 10 now? 

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Not sure of any major issues with 10. It's only free until tomorrow at midnight. After that if you upgrade you will have to buy 10. If you do it before then it's totally free.

Just get a thumbdrive and install it from there. That should resolve the issue as it will replace the current OS and you won't need room for the temp file.

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4 hours ago, Tonik said:

How much free space?

10 gb for windows is actually low. Its usually close to twice that.

Is there a windows.old folder in the root of the c drive?

I don't see a windows.old. I think i'm good, thank you.

Edited by Gump
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3 hours ago, blue03636 said:

Not sure of any major issues with 10. It's only free until tomorrow at midnight. After that if you upgrade you will have to buy 10. If you do it before then it's totally free.

Just get a thumbdrive and install it from there. That should resolve the issue as it will replace the current OS and you won't need room for the temp file.

Ok Thank you.

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Ugh. Windows 10, whiles saving to a external drive keeps failing the upgrade since the external drive is password protected even with auto unlock set on the laptop. Trying again with that protection removed. 

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4 minutes ago, Gump said:

Ugh. Windows 10, whiles saving to a external drive keeps failing the upgrade since the external drive is password protected even with auto unlock set on the laptop. Trying again with that protection removed. 

Burn it to a dvd.

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5 hours ago, Tonik said:

Burn it to a dvd.

Thank you but Screw it i'm done. I removed the protection so there is none on the external drive and the program keeps trying to upgrade again and filling the laptop with more gunk. You can't restart the upgrade. Im done with it. This laptop has no cd drive. The daughter keeps referring to putting apps back on like Netflix and some blue mail app. in my day you didn't have apps on your laptop you had programs with shortcuts. I'm done with it. I asked where you find these "apps" and she said the store on my laptop.....What store!!! What the heck is she talking about. She's linked in to this stupid Microsoft mail thing which is how you turn on the computer. Normally you enter a password to login to the computer but this password is also a direct link to MSN and auto logs her into MSN. I hate that. everything wants to be ties together to get you to buy more shit. Im done with it.

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So I found this store she's talking about. It's the MSN store and then APPS.......THe stupid thing now says the PC time settings may be incorrect and to check them and it won't download the Netflix app because of it. What is all this crap. I don't have issues on any other devices because I don't stay linked to anything. I'm old and frustrated.

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actually it's some store tied in on the task bar and the apps work form that direction. This isn't a computer it's revenue generator tied around being tied in to some damn program so buy more crap. Vent over.

 

Thank you for all your help. 

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