A slow but steady loss of freespace?

[Derek891]

Hello to everyone. I'm having a problem as described in the topic title, and hopefully someone can point me to the cause. First, a little background. About two months ago I bought an HP Envy DV7-7333CL laptop. Windows 8 preinstalled with all the Microsoft and HP bloatware. Smooth sailing until last weekend when I lost my network connection and no matter what I tried, I could not reconnect. Out came my old HP Mini so I could get online and do some troubleshooting. Microsoft's support site was of little help, so I ended up on HP's support site. Found the appropriate topic and went down their 8 point checklist. If this doesn't work, then try this, and so on and so on. Ended up at the last step, which said I needed to re-install Windows(**GROAN**). So about three hours later I had a brand new, bright and shiny Windows 8 OS. Another couple of more hours to apply Windows updates, bring Norton Internet Security up to date, re-install several system drivers from HP, update some but not all of the HP freeware, and re-configure all the items in Control Panel to my liking. At this point, I decided to uninstall some of the bloatware I would never use, like the trial version of MS Office, HP Music powered by Meridian, and 16 or so Wild Tangent Games. After this I installed Piriform's CCleaner and Defraggler to clean up the file system, the registry, and do a thorough disk defrag. At this point, my hard drive had 44.5 GB of files. Now, on to my problem.

 

A couple of days later, I did another full defrag (not the quick defrag) and noticed my hard drive had gone from 44.5 to 45.5 GB. In had not installed any new apps or downloaded any large files. I thought this was a little odd, maybe one of Windows little quirks, so I decided to start keeping track of my hard drive's data. Here's where things get interesting.

 

Went from 45.5 to 46.2 GB after doing a quick defrag (the first time I used this option) before shutdown on the same day.

 

Went from 46.2 to 47.1 GB after doing another quick defrag immediately after startup the next day.

 

Went from 47.1 to 47.5 GB after doing another quick defrag before shutdown that same day.

 

Went from 47.5 to 48.4 GB after doing a Windows Update (8 important plus 1 optional update). This was on Wednesday morning (8/13/2013).

 

Went from 48.4 to 48.9 GB after doing a quick defrag before shutdown on the same day.

 

Today I started up and decided to do a full defrag instead of the quick defrag. I sat there the entire time and watched as my data total climbed from 48.9 at the start to 49.2, then 49.4, then 49.6, then 49.8, then 50.0, and end up at 50.9 GB when the defrag finished. A total of 1 GB in one session! I wouldn't believe it unless I sat there and watch it happen right before my eyes.

 

So what is wrong? It should be known that after I downloaded and installed Defraggler, I left all the settings as is. Also, I ran CCleaner prior to each defrag session. And I never ran the Windows Defragmenter since the re-install.

 

Has anyone on the forum experienced anything similar to this? Should I have configured Defraggler differently prior to using it? Or is it Windows 8 doing something I'm totally unaware of? I'm aware that the paging file could be a part of this. I'm also aware that Windows squirrels away all sorts of log files on a continual basis. But gaining 6.5 GB of data in just a few days is just a bit too much. And to repeat, I did not install any new programs or download any files since this problem began.

 

I'm going to sit back a couple of days and let everyone come up with their theory on this. I just want to know if Defraggler is doing something wrong, or if Windows is just being Windows? Or did the FBI sneak 6.5 GB of kiddie porn past Norton Internet Security and will be breaking down my door at 3 AM this evening? If I'm still here on Friday, I'll check in and see what all of you think the problem is. Thanks for reading this and hopefully someone can help.

[Alan_B]

Welcome to the forum.

 

Try this freeware version of Treesize

https://www.jam-soft....80&language=EN

That gives you options of a 3.2 MB installer or 2.5 MB Portable (which is my preference.)

That will allow you to see where the space hogs are,

and by either taking screen shots or using Treesize "Print" you can capture each day and then compare and see what is growing.

 

For me the worst space hogs are Browser profiles and caches and C:\Windows\Winsxs\.

C:\System Volume Information\ is also a space hog for people who have not disabled "System Restore" (or whatever Win 8 may call it..)

 

Alternatively

 

Desist from defragging for a week - nothing will die.

I have not defragged for a year and my computer still runs.

 

If your used space continues to grow when you are not defragging then you have some other issue,

and my best bet would be software updates,

either Microsoft Updating (sometimes without warning)

or applications (especially from HP) automatically updating.

 

How large is the partition you are defragging, and is it system partition C:\ ?

[Derek891]

Hello Alan. Thanks for replying to my post. Thanks for the link to Treesize. I downloaded it and ran it to get an idea of where my problem might be, I just wish I would have done it sooner. I'll answer your last question first and move up from there.

 

1.) The drive in question is C: drive and has a capacity of 902 GB. You might think I'm quibbling over 6.5 GB out of 902 total, but my real concern is

how fast this happened.

 

2.) Windows 8 Update and HP Software Update are both set only to notify me of any available updates, leaving it up to me to choose when to download and install them. Wouldn't want it any other way.

 

3.) After my re-install both Windows and HP had set one restore point each; however, after I had removed all the bloatware and used CCleaner and Defraggler to clean everything up, I set my own restore point named "Clean Install". I then used CCleaner to remove the two previous restore points, leaving just the one I created. It was at this point that my data total was 44.5 GB.

 

I have followed your advice and stopped using Defraggler until I can sort this out. I'm going to try and attach a screenshot of the results from Treesize. Maybe you can spot something that stands out as abnormal for Windows. I guess I'm just going to keep running Treesize and keep comparing the results. Thanks again Alan.

[Derek891]

Back again Alan. Just a quick follow up. After installing Treesize and posting here I did a restart and checked C drive. I dropped from 50.9 GB down to 48.5 GB! This matches where I was at on 8/13 after installing the Windows Updates. I'm going to run Treesize now to see what changed. I'll keep you posted.

[Derek891]

I believe I have found the culprit thanks to your advice. There was no change in Windows, in System Volume Info, in SWSetup, in Program Files(x86), or in Program Files. The big change occurred in pagefile.sys, going from 4608 MB down to 1152 MB after restart. When I went to the virtual memory settings, I found the box checked for "Automatically manage paging file size". The chart at the bottom of the page read "Minimum 16 MB", "Recommended 4471MB", and "Currently Allocated 1152 MB", matching the info reported by Treesize. I can only assume that every time I ran Defraggler, it was taking into account the growth occurring in the paging file. Rather puzzling, since there is 8GB of memory installed in this machine, I would think that the paging file would not need to grow that large. But I guess that is Windows behaving like Windows. Thanks again Alan, now I know what to expect the next time.

[Alan_B]

1.) The drive in question is C: drive and has a capacity of 902 GB. You might think I'm quibbling over 6.5 GB out of 902 total, but my real concern is

how fast this happened.

Actually I looked up your machine and saw it came with a large HDD,

and thought that either you had a supplementary small SSD for your operating system,

or that you had only a small Windows partition and a much larger data/Documents partition,

or possibly you were like myself and afflicted with O.C.D.

 

I am like you and hate the way Free Space is used up,

and when I used Win XP I would often mount last month's backup image of C:\ and compare with the current state of C:\

and obsess over every new file in-case it was malware that had invaded,

or even worse - a Windows Update that had forced itself through.

Windows 7 is so much worse that I have given up worrying.

 

So far as Pagefile.sys is concerned, I have it set to a fixed size on my 64 bit Windows 7 and this is good for me.

I do not know what is suitable for Windows 8.

 

N.B.

Last night I happened to stumble across a Win 8 bug in this article

https://windowssecre...-for-windows-8/

Search for the phrase

On my Win8 PC, File History saves a new version of every file every night, which quickly uses up all of my backup space.

This could also cause you grief, either now or in the future

[Derek891]

Hello Alan. Thanks for the link. I read the article about System Recovery and the article about File History. Good website, I made it a point to bookmark it for future reference. Fortunately I haven't enabled File History since I don't have much of anything to save other than a dozen or so wallpapers and several Linux ISO images. Looks like I should stay away from it until Microsoft sorts it out.

 

I found the real culprit yesterday. The strange behavior of the paging file was only a small part of the problem. For the last two months I had this little window popping up at random asking me to register with HP. I got tired of looking at this thing so I decided to fill out their little form and send it. Before the window closed it informed me I could uninstall HP Registration Service via the Control Panel. I did it and found I was getting rid of 55 MB or so. Seemed like a win-win situation. WRONG!

 

Because of the fact I was uninstalling a piece of their precious software, HP automatically created a new restore point. The System Volume Information File now stood at 7268 MB. Ouch! My total file system was back up to 47 GB. Here's what I did to fix it.

 

I deleted both restore points, then went into the system performance settings and disabled the paging file. Did a restart, then started Defraggler and let it run. Then set a new restore point. The result: System Volume Information had shrunk to 926 MB and my total file system was at 39 GB! Success!! I re-enbled the paging file, re-booted, and that was that.

 

I guess that closes this thread. Thank you for your help Alan. Without Treesize as a reference, I would have never figured this out. Talk to you on another thread. Take care.

[Alan_B]

Happy to help

 

Regards

Alan