Windows 10: Inaccurate C: drive capacity reading/Unable delete winold folders

A very good question - and one I'm afraid I cannot answer for you. I've never seen anything like those particular files. Perhaps @Brink, @zbook, @NavyLCDR or others could shed some light?

What I would say is that I have recently deleted some AppxStaging folders from under SystemRestore, releasing some 3GB that deleting restore points wouldn't touch. So far there's no ill effects, but I did make a system image to fall back on, just in case.

BTW: the Chkdsk folder is interesting - I have some report's dating back to 2014 in mine, long before Win10 was installed.


Edit: creating a restore point manually does create files with similar names to yours, so my guess is that they are leftovers from early restore points that somehow get overlooked when clearing out restore points the 'official' way. But that's just a guess, so make a system image before deleting anything.

 

The safest way to delete all but the most current restore point is to use the Disk Cleanup option. Option one, step #7, of this tutorial.

*ArrowOpen and Use Disk Cleanup in Windows 10 Windows 10 Tutorials

 

Seems that has already been tried. Post #10 said...

 

Ok, didn't say how it was done. 3rd party, MS.....

Another option would be to set system protection off for all drives temporarily, and take the option to delete all restore points. Turn it back on and create one as a starter.

 

Actually, that's what I tried when I saw that my "C:\System Volume Information\SystemRestore\AppxStaging" folder occupied 3GB. Even with system protection turned off it remained there. Turning system protection back on said that no space was being used for restore points, despite the fact that I could see that some 3GB were in use. AppxStaging was created on 20th Oct. 2017 and seemed to contain a copy of everything from my "C:\Program Files\WindowsApps" folder. Strange - but deleted now.

 

Page file ?

Hiber file ?

 

Post #12 shows that the 'missing' space is to be found in 'C:\System Volume Information' which occupies 44.2GB.

 

Hi guys, thanks for all your help. Tried to delete from within Treesize but it didn't play ball. Tomcat got it with turning protection off for C: and deleting all restore points worked. All is good now. Great service and thanks again to you all for your time and expertise. *Smile*Smile

 

Ah, thought you had already done that.

 

Glad to hear that. It's always best to use the official methods if at all possible. Hacking should only ever be used as a last resort.

 

It would seem not - it would appear that Disk Clean-up's 'delete all but the last restore point' had been tried though.

 

Those large file are the orphan System Restore points and I have seen in Win 8 forum where some users have > 100GB. The most effective way is to delete the whole "System Volume Information" folder using Linux, reboot and let Windows re-create the folder. That's the reason I have Linux Mint installed on a separate partition and when needed to clean up those stubborn Files/Folders such as Windows.old, System Volume Information etc...
Once back in Windows, create a new restore point.

From time to time, I use Linux to delete "System Information Volume" Folders on all drives, Reboot and Windows will re-create everything. I've been doing this since Windows 95 and can assure you there will be no ill affect.

My suggestion to you is turn off System Restore point and use a third party back up software. System restore is not reliable, slow down your PC and often cause problem like this.

 

Glad to hear! Thought, too, you had tried it. If you havn't already, make a new one manually after you turn it back on, for safety.

EDIT: Topgun's suggestion is the better long term solution.

 

I`m running this on my X299 now, darn these updates take a while to get rid of, over 5 minutes now *Eek

I also agree with Dino, I don`t use system restore, I create images. But you need a place to store those images.

 

All good advice noted!