Hard Drive is almost full after windows reinstallation

Question

I just recently reinstalled windows to get a fresh start, but when I went to file explorer, my hard drive is over half full. That means that there should be 50gb of something in there. I suspected it was the windows.old folder, but that had nothing but a user folder in there that only took up 5mb. If I highlighted everything. Everything in my drive says it takes up only 20gb, which makes more sense, but in file explorer, it says over 50gb is used. Why does file explorer say half of my hard drive is filled up when it isn't? Is this just a case of restarting and it should fix itself?

Answer 1

Hi Nelson

Great, you can delete that as follows, because it wont delete manually . . .

Run Disk Cleanup Twice:

Open File Explorer

Click on your hard drive

On the Manage Tab, click Cleanup

Let Disk Cleanup do its initial scan

Select Everything in the list and choose Delete

Start Disk Cleanup again

Let Disk Cleanup do its initial scan

Important - This time in the resulting dialog, click 'Cleanup System Files'

Let Disk Cleanup run another scan

Select Everything in the list and choose Delete

Answer 2

I made a bootable USB with the media installation, but instead of booting from it, I ran the "setup.exe" file inside which installs windows, I don't know if that adds another installation.

But in the picture, everything in the C: drive says is only 13gb, which makes more sense, but it still says its used 50gb.

And, in disk management, I only have 3 partitions-

.the system partition (only 350mb)

.a recovery partition (509mb)

.and the windows partition (the remaining 118gb)

So I don't have any other partitions

Answer 3

Hi Nelson

That folder will automatically be deleted by the Windows update process, just give it a few days . . .

Answer 4

Hi Nelson Windows Explorer is useless when it comes to working out where your hard drive space is being used . . .

Click the link below to download a small free utility called Treesize. Using that tool, you will instantly see where this space is being used

https://www.jam-software.com/treesize_free/

Once you have worked out where this space is being used, please provide a screenshot, showing the folder(s) using up your space . . .

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Answer 5

Did you do a clean install of windows? Or did you just add another installation of windows on top of the original? A clean install is a custom installation that allows you delete the partition with windows first before installing the new version. You lose all your files and programs--everything on the partition with windows will be gone. Make sure you have copies and backups of all your personal files and copies of programs installation files on removable media or an external hard drive. Copies of photos, videos , documents, etc. are easier to copy back to your hard drive and better than backups, IMO.

https://www.windowscentral.com/how-do-clean-installation-windows-10#clean_install_windows10