Why is there a huge discrepancy between 'Used Space' on C drive and actual total of folders/files

[Wintings]

According to 'Properties' in Windows Explorer, my C drive (one of four partitions on my primary drive) has 296GB 'Used Space' and 272GB 'Free Space', giving a total partition size of 568GB. However, if I add up the total space occupied by all the folders and files on C drive that are listed in Windows Explorer they come to roughly 44GB.  (The largest folder is Windows (19.5GB), followed by Users (9GB) and Program Files (5.8GB). The rest of the folders are smaller than this.). Nearly all my applications, data, photos, videos, backups etc are on the other three partitions on the primary hard drive or on a secondary internal hard drive.

 

Can anyone suggest what accounts for the HUGE discrepancy between the reported 'Used Space' and the total of the actual folders/files? I first noticed this when backing up my C drive using Acronis TrueImage, which yields a back up file of 218GB - presumably the 296GB with some compression. A few months back I recall that the Acronis backup files were sized at around 60-70GB, so there's something funny going on! If there is some giant folder or file that is lurking on my C drive, what could it be and why isn't it showing up in Windows Explorer? (I have checked 'Unhide' in View in Windows Explorer so there should be no hidden folders/files.)

 

[Jim K Global Moderator]

What happens when you highlight all the folders/files in the root directory ... right click and select properties?  Do you get roughly the same amount as what Properties show?  Anyway, there is no rhyme or reason for a discrepancy of around 200 GBs ... you're looking at something wrong or not really selecting all the folders.
 

You could try WinDirStat which will give you a breakdown of all your folders and let you know what files/folders are taking up the most space.  It is a better tool for this kind of work vs. using Explorer.

[Eric Veteran]

If you show hidden files you will probably find there are other folders Windows uses taking up the space like ProgramData. (It's ~4GB on my PC.)

[xendrome]

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

[Kommander Hammer]

There are other files like hidden files and hidden system files that arent being accounting for. Also System restore will take a portion, usually 10% by default as well as your recycle bin allocates space. There is also the page file and the hibernation file.

[Wintings]

14 hours ago, jjkusaf said:

What happens when you highlight all the folders/files in the root directory ... right click and select properties?  Do you get roughly the same amount as what Properties show?  Anyway, there is no rhyme or reason for a discrepancy of around 200 GBs ... you're looking at something wrong or not really selecting all the folders.
 

You could try WinDirStat which will give you a breakdown of all your folders and let you know what files/folders are taking up the most space.  It is a better tool for this kind of work vs. using Explorer.

Thanks jjkusaf. The answer is 'Yes' I get the same total as shown in Properties of C drive. I have attached a couple of screen captures, one showing my drive configuration and one showing the Folders/Files on my C drive. From this you can see C drive is 569GB, of which 356 GB is reported used. Yet an analysis of C drive using my Folder Sizes program shows the total of all folders/files on C to be only 42.9 GB. In other words, there appears to be a massive 313 GB of 'stuff' unaccounted for! There must be something wrong somewhere...

 

If there's anything you or any of the other contributors who have kindly posted replies can suggest I'd be very grateful.

[+BudMan MVC]

Why are folders RED?..  I would assume you do not have permissions to view these folders, which is why they show up as ZERO in size..

 

How do you have 5 primary partitions on a basic disk??

[adrynalyne]

16 minutes ago, BudMan said:

Why are folders RED?..  I would assume you do not have permissions to view these folders, which is why they show up as ZERO in size..

 

How do you have 5 primary partitions on a basic disk??

GPT allows up to 128 primary partitions. 4 was a limitation of MBR.

[+BudMan MVC]

Yeah I know - but your disk shows its basic not gpt..

 

Oh my bad.. looks like basic can support gpt

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa363785(v=vs.85).aspx

 

Normally when using gpt you would see the disk as dynamic..  What tool is that your using?  Why does C list nt authority as owner??

 

Can you right click on C:\ properties and show the permissions tab.

[Wintings]

Problem now solved.

Running my drive analysis program as Administrator (I wasn't doing that before) revealed a huge folder (315GB) entitled System Volume Information.

I then found that System Restore on my C drive was set to 100%! How that happened God only knows but I have now reduced it to a more sensible 15% and succeeded in clearing out many GBs of unnecessary restore info. I found how to do this clear out on another help forum: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answers/id-1813658/reduce-size-system-volume-information-folder.html  My C drive is now back to 'normal'. Thanks to all for helping solve this problem.