Defraggler has filled HDD - what to do?

[Skink 10]

Ok so I did some cleaning up on a laptop with 320GB drive that was 90% full, managed to remove a load of downloads and tat and get it to 75% full, left Defraggler to run a quick defrag and then a defrag free space

 

Came back and machine reports 97% full HDD. Three folders also have dates of 1/12/16: Program Files, Programe Files (x86) and Windows

 

So - what happened? And can I just "roll back" or is something busted? Help

[Ghozer 112]

Looking at the folders that have changed, it's more likely that because you cleared some space, Windows Update was able to download and install some updates (as no space, it wouldn't have been able to, until now)

 

Defraggler won't use more space than it already did when you opened it, it just rearranges things, not makes them use more...

[Skink 10]

Defraggler won't use more space than it already did when you opened it, it just rearranges things, not makes them use more...

 

thats what I thought, but I guess something has gone wrong - but what?

 

The machine was running fine with 25% free space before defrag

 

FWIW all updates are applied - it still had just over 10% free space before I started

 

---------- Post added 02-12-2016 at 07:44 ----------

 

Had a look at the defraggler file list and therewere 10,000 FSX files with over 100,000 fragments. I uninstalled 12GB of FSX and now have over 100GB of free space . . .

[Lastnet IT 10]

If you're struggling for space it can sometimes be worth nuking the system and starting again. There's a hidden folder in the Windows directory (installer) which grows over time. I've seen older, well-used systems where it takes up 50% of the drive space!

 

Take a look at the size of c:\windows\installer (copy and paste to File Explorer, it won't show if you navigate there).

 

Don't randomly delete stuff in there though, you'll start seeing all sorts of errors.

[TaxiBaz 10]

I noticed my hard drive free space had 'shrunk' over time without me installing or saving lots of stuff on the computer. I turned off the system restore feature. This deletes all the previous restore points from your system and gives you back the space, which in my case was over 100gb. Sorry if his is off topic for your problem, but may help others ;-)