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Question

Hard drive free space dwindles to 0

Jul 23, 2017 4:29PM PDT

My 8yr old Dell laptop contains a 500mb hard drive. Upon startup, file explorer shows, say 40 gb of free disk space. Gradually, even with no active user input, Windows 10 will gradually report less and less free space, until eventually, in less than 1/2 hour, it says I have very little or no free space. This causes any software program temporarily needing free space to behave as if there is no free space. If I then reboot, Windows will report another larger amount of free space, but never the same as the amount shown after the previous reboot. Then the cycle repeats itself. Any ideas? This is a royal pain.
Thanks!

Discussion is locked

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Clarification Request
Additional
Jul 23, 2017 4:32PM PDT

I forgot to mention I have run several virus scans with differing programs and a malware scan, all negative.

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Sounds like search indexing.
Jul 23, 2017 4:49PM PDT
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Answer
W10 on older computer
Jul 23, 2017 6:48PM PDT

Turn off Fast Boot in W10. It's a hibernate program anyway. That will save some space. If you have enough RAM in it, might consider limiting the pagefile size also.

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Answer
System Restore Will Do That
Jul 24, 2017 3:34PM PDT

Open the Control Panel, then the "System" icon, then select "Advanced system settings", then the "System Protection" tab. Once there, move the SR "Disk space usage" slicer to the minimum amount, or if you're really in need of space, disable SR entirely from the same location. (This last option isn't recommended because you will have fewer recovery options should a problem arise.)

Next, clean up some of the unneeded junk on the computer by using "Disk Cleanup". Open the Control Panel, then "Administrative Tools", then "Disk Cleanup". Select the option to clean up "System Files" (On older operating systems, you'll need to select the "Other" tab) and eliminate all but the latest Restore point. Also, place check marks in the boxes to allow Disk Cleanup to remove all unneeded Temporary Files, old Windows Update backups, etc.

Hope this helps.

Grif