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Keep getting low storge space message - need disc space HELP

peege23

New Member
I am worried there is a larger issue with my surface than meets the eye. I have run countless disc clean-ups & even removed programs from my surface & I am still showing 0 MB of disc space available. Yet there are only 251 mb of disc space shown in programs. I can't run the 8.1 update because of this & am having trouble printing with messages of not enough disc space to print?!?! WTF?!?!? HELP!!!!!!!! I am not tech saavy & have no idea where to start.
 

jeffskent

Member
Clearly you have an error in the os or on the ssd. Have you tried the recovery option in settings/change pc settings/update and recovery/recovery/refresh your pc without affecting your files? This could be a quick and easy fix for you. If it was my machine, however, I would copy/backup any data I had on the machine to an external drive, and then chose the option of remove everything and reinstall windows. This option formats everything on the ssd and starts you with a brand new, clean ssd with a clean copy of windows 8.0. After the required updates you should be able to update to 8.1 if all goes well. Have you called Microsoft on this issue? I hear they can be very helpful.

I would appreciate any feedback you give as to the solution to your problem for all of our enlightenment. Good luck.
 

jnjroach

Administrator
Staff member
You haven't given the size of your Documents, Pictures, Music and Video or even Downloads folder (including Public), are you running any Virtual Server Apps like Hyper-V or VirtualBox or VMplayer and if so how many VMs. Data is more than likely you primary suspect. Also you can run Disk Clean Up to include system files and see if it clears up more space.

If none of this works your SSD may be corrupt (which is a rare occurrence but can happen).
 

mitchellvii

Well-Known Member
Yeah what has probably happened is that you have some software that has created a massive "crash dump" file for some reason and you simply need to locate and delete it.

I run gdipp font-smoothing on my rig and it can do this occasionally.

Just go through your Program files (x86) folder and check folder sizes until you find one that seems overlarge. Then go in and see if there are any crash dump folders or anything else causing the bloat. Delete that and you are set.
 

mitchellvii

Well-Known Member
Try these as well:

1) You can also delete your Windows / Software Distribution / Downloads files as this is just a bunch of prior updates you have already installed.
2) You can bring back 3+ gigs by disabling "hibernation" mode. Just Google how to do that.
3) Also you can compress your hard drive (in drive properties).
4) If you previously upgraded to Windows 8.1 Preview you may have a "Windows.old" folder you can delete using Disk Cleanup / System Files (do not attempt to delete this manually).
5) If you have a bunch of media (photos, music, videos) you can offload these to an SDCard and make them available to your Libraries by right clicking each folder and selecting "Add to Library" then choose appropriate Library. Also empty your recycle bin after doing all these things.

All these together can bring back 10-15 gb of space.
 
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