Unknown missing space in Windows 7 C:\ drive

Question

I've been checking the internet for answers to missing space in Windows 7 (Professional 32bit) but most are slightly different from mine.

My C:\ drive has about 56GB. Current disk space is about 5.58GB.

The files in my C:\ drive occupies about 23GB. I have about 32GB of space that is unknown. I have used WinDirStat to identify the unknown space but I can't delete or fix it, even with WinDirStat.

I've disabled synchronization. deleted restore points and disabled restoration. There's no backup copies. I've reduced shadow copies to minimal space allocation. I've deleted hibernation file too. Performed system cleanup. I did chkdsk. Defragmentation. etc

What should I do?

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http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v605/limchoonkiat/missingspace.png — Choon Kiat, Jan 25 '11 at 02:49
welcome! :-) to notify me or another user, use the @ before their username. — studiohack, Jan 25 '11 at 02:54

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 25 '11 at 10:02

2

Found the problem after searching more sites and tried check on my laptop's restore and backup. I have been checking windows 7 backup, restore points, shadowcopy except my laptop's (Lenovo) backup.

It came default with the backup scheduled to run and dump the file on your C:drive, taking up the entire drive.

Thank you all.

answered Jan 25 '11 at 10:02

Choon Kiat

41

Please accept your own answer as soon as possible to mark this question solved. – Daniel Beck Jan 25 '11 at 10:05
Don't forget to accept this as soon as you can. – AndrejaKo Jan 25 '11 at 10:06

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 25 '11 at 02:45

1

Run a chkdsk /f on the hard drive, then try windirstat again.

Skip the bad sector scanning option.

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/guide-to-using-check-disk-in-windows-vista/

answered Jan 25 '11 at 02:45

Moab

58,308

Thank you. Tried your suggestion. windirstat still can't delete. All options are disabled when I select the "unknown" space. – Choon Kiat Jan 25 '11 at 03:02
Are there any hidden partitions showing in disk management? – Moab Jan 25 '11 at 03:45
No hidden partition. I've checked that. Allocated space for C: Drive is 60GB and about 5ish GB is free. – Choon Kiat Jan 25 '11 at 03:54

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Apr 14 '21 at 19:20

In my case, it seems to have been System Restore reserved space even if System Restore was supposed to be off. I tried toggling System Restore to On and then Off again, and it still didn't free up the unknown missing space.

Finally, a reboot did the trick! Hope this helps people out there...

Unknown missing space in Windows 7 C:\ drive

3 Answers3

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