HD half full after reformat

[dkingman]

And it says my hard drive has 500gig of 1TB used?

Whats causing this and how would I fix it?

Thanks

Win 7 64

 

[carnageX]

Are you sure you actually did a format of the drive during Windows install, and didn't instead just install over top of Windows? Check to see if you have a Windows.old folder under your C: drive. If you do...that's where all of your old data is currently stored. You can safely move your personal documents/files from there to your actual profile directories (desktop, documents, etc.).

After that, you can run Disk Cleanup, and after it scans once, click the "Also remove system files" button and it will scan again, then give you the option to remove old Windows installations in the checkbox list.

 

[dkingman]

Well I had two choices, one was an upgrade and I chose the other. I just put the disk in and followed instructions.

I have two windows.old folders. Can I delete them? Or should I get rid of it with disc clean up?

 

[carnageX]

When you installed, did you actually format the Windows partition by clicking "Format"? Or did you just select the partition you wanted to install onto, then clicked "Next"? If you did the latter, you should have had a messagebox pop up that notified you that it was going to move everything into a Windows.old folder under your C: drive, and then install a fresh copy, rather than formatting the partition/drive first.

As long as you have your data backed up already, then they're safe to delete.

Disk cleanup should be able to get rid of them.

 

[dkingman]

Hm. Don't recall seeing any of those options.

I'll just delete both folders.

Cheers.

 

[carnageX]

Hm. Don't recall seeing any of those options.

I'll just delete both folders.

Cheers.

Use Disk Cleanup to get rid of them - manually deleting them, you'll run into issues due to permissions (because you're trying to delete old files that still have system-level permissions on them). Usually easier to try the Disk Cleanup method first.

 

[dkingman]

Which files should i delete with it? Temp files or..?

 

[carnageX]

Which files should i delete with it? Temp files or..?

The other things Disk Cleanup cleans up are optional - really up to you. Temp files are a good one to do usually. Just make sure you click the "Clean System files" button at the bottom as well, so it re-scans for old Windows installs (the Windows.old folders).

 

[dkingman]

Sorry, I've not really used it before for something like this. How do I actually select the files I want it to clean?

Never mind, think I figured it out.

Thanks again.

 

[carnageX]

If Disk Cleanup didn't remove everything, then you can follow the command prompt instructions here:
Delete or remove Windows.old folder after Windows Upgrade in Windows 8 / 7