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OS drive filling up space on its own.


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A system that I don't use all of the time has a 256gb drive.  When I boot up this machine I usually check the space.  Yesterday it only had 2GB left.  The usual culprits are Live's left over installers or system restore points.   I use Tree File Size to check the innards.

Amazing how many of these plugin developers bloat your system with presets that can be over 1GB.  The biggest culprits are AT and Tonex which eats 6gb. My Reason REs take up 15gb.   Kilohearts, NI, Melda, presets or whatever they are use a lot of space in those strange folders that I never thought existed in XP.

The real problem began trying to clone the drive to a 1TB drive.  Acronis constantly failed.  After some annoying research that failure was due to only having 2GB of space left. For some reason that shortage of space would created problems to transfer to a new drive.  I moved all of My Documents to another drive to free up some more space.

 Acronis rarely fails me. This was plenty of attempts.  I have AOMEI Partition Assistant but I wanted to stick with Acronis because of past success and also familiar.  Then there were other errors like disk is not initialized and I'm starting to see system crashes with diskmanagement, drive ultilites, you name it. I couldn't even format the transfer drive.  I thought great I got a broken drive that hasn't been put to use.  I always test drives when new since quality isn't what it use to be. 

 All of this was done to transfer the OS using an drive dock which I never had trouble before.  I wasn't ready to open the case and disconnect a drive and then transfer.  Sometimes you never no how much it screws up licensing of software when it comes to hardware changes. 

The increasing space bloat is mystery.  I can only think the culprit is Windows F'updates.  There is one that fails and the only solution is to use cmd and resize the partition for that update. That's MS solution to fix.   They probably wont.  I have to wonder if those failed updates stay and don't get over written.  Somehow this system increased 10GB on it's own.  With MS and Apple you will hear when there is a problem the suggestion is make sure your OS is up to date.  It seems updating breaks more than fixes recently. 

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Grab something like TreeSize Free and check your C drive. Many programs leave a massive footprint in the C:/Windows/Installer folder (that is a hidden system folder) by default. Folders that begin bubbling over 4GB are my candidates for junctions, but that particular folder cannot be junctioned or it disables the Windows Installer. 

Temp files in Windows/Temp and Users/appdata/Local/Temp also build up (those can be purged). The User/Downloads can be moved as well (or deleted depending on preference), but a utility that lets you see folder size is where to start.

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1 hour ago, kitekrazy1 said:

The increasing space bloat is mystery.  I can only think the culprit is Windows F'updates. 

Try using Disk Cleanup if it is available on your OS. It's built into Windows 10 by default. Not sure about earlier versions.

It will identify leftover system files (including windows updates) which can be deleted safely.

Edited by Kal S
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1 hour ago, Kal S said:

Try using Disk Cleanup if it is available on your OS. It's built into Windows 10 by default. Not sure about earlier versions.

It will identify leftover system files (including windows updates) which can be deleted safely.

I usually do that first. One system had 3GB.  Managing system restore and delete, create a new one, have it set to minimum.  I still use it because of Native Asshat.

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12 hours ago, kitekrazy1 said:

I usually do that first. One system had 3GB.  Managing system restore and delete, create a new one, have it set to minimum.  I still use it because of Native Asshat.

Great.

Have you checked the space reserved for the recycle bin on each drive/partition? Mine is set to 13GB on C Drive right now but I can reduce it if needed. 

You'll need to restart to see the change in drive space.

Edited by Kal S
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I spend hours last night trying to get the upgraded drive to boot.  I've spent more time using the command line than I do a DAW.

Usually I don't like disconnecting drives just to try to get something to work,   I would use the BIOS boot selection for that new drive and OS not found. 

The simple solution that worked was unplugging my hub that has the iLok,

Usually I never bother with a BIOS after putting a system together, This one was over 10 years ago,  You forget how a BIOS works from manufacturers.  I found the boot order that didn't say boot order. 

Now I can move the bloat around.

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