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Question

Windows 7 forum: Hard Drive storage space discrepancy

Dec 3, 2011 5:57PM PST

Hi. I cannot reconcile why my laptop appears to be running out of Hard Disc storage space. In the "my Computer" windows directory screen I am shown 60GB of 287 available but when I right-click Properties the size on disc reads 124GB. I would have expected this to read 227GB (287 - 60). I have been concerned for a while that something might be cashing my memory, or that a delete job hasn't worked. I have defragmented to no effect. Has anyone witnessed this before or knows of a solution. Or am I just looking at this too simplistically as I am a novice

Thanks Happy

Discussion is locked

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Answer
Just a note.
Dec 3, 2011 6:24PM PST

I deleted your other post in the Windows 7 forum because of the formatting problems with the post.

Since that was in the Windows 7 forum we assume this laptop is running Windows 7.

Mark

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Answer
What you are seeing can depend on ...
Dec 4, 2011 7:54AM PST

the settings for what your OS is showing. You may have hidden files and directories that are taking up space that the OS "sees" but that are shown as available for overwriting.

if you open a command prompt and type in these two commands:

[color=green]CD \[/color] (then press the enter/return key)

[color=green]DIR[/color] (then press the enter/return key)

how much free space is shown?

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Answer
Reposted for ripple
Dec 4, 2011 4:50PM PST

Have you been through disk cleanup? sometimes the are system error files
or something in there that take up a lot of space. also under the "more
options" tab in disk cleanup, there is a shadow copies option. they may
be taking up some space as well. (though if you think you computer is
about to die, it may not the best option to delete shadow copy's).

Ripple added an unnecessary url. That's why I deleted his original post.

Kees