Dear Anyone.

I'm going to feel SOOO stupid when someone explains the screamingly obvious to me....! Windows 10 here, by the way.

Got two hard drives, C (internal) and F (external). They were both getting full so I thought I'd .RAR a chunk of F and stick it in cloud storage, then back up a chunk of C into the space. Started .RAR-ing on F and it suddenly came up 'Drive C is full'. Now I had no idea anything was touching C, I checked and I'd definitely been doing everything on F, as far as I could work out. Looked at C and yes - its bar in 'This PC' was bright red. It was full.

All I could think of, unless you can think of anything different, was that WinRAR had been storing temp files on C. Fine, delete massive temp files. Except I can't find them. I've been going throiugh folder after folder on an admittedly full even before this happened C drive, checking file sizes, can't find what files have suddenly filled the rest of the drive up, dunno what to delete. I've uninstalled a couple of progs. I don't use much and got a TINY bit of space back but not much and I'm scared to go back to backing up the external drive for the Web because it seems to want to put stuff on Drive C, which is officially now full.

Drive F has 180 gig. free. It's a 1TB drive. Please, anyone, how do I find what mysterious new files WinRAR's filled up my C drive with when I thought I was only working on the external one (F), when I've found them with your help is it safe to delete them so I've got a bit of internal drive real estate back and how, when I use WinRAR, can I stop it putting tempfiles on C, or whatever it's doing to fill the admittedly overly-full-already drive up?

I've tried the 'Size = Gigantic' thing and it's not found anything bigger than 4 gig and the names of all it's found sound vaguely familiar, not new. Was kinda expecting a bunch of hewge .TMP files or similar. I've done the DOS Tree /F /a >Textfile.txt thing and it lists all the files - but NOT their sizes. Is there a variant on that which gives you the SIZES of all the files? And I've tried the 'list files by size' thing and again nothing that big's coming up. Biggest file was PAGEFILE at 4gig (that's the one the Size = Gigantic found.) Manually added up the lot and according to that the drive shouldn't be anywhere near full. But it is!

I feel like the guy in the Zoo who couldn't see the elephants. What am I missing and why can't I find these files filling up my hard drive!?!

Yoiurs dumbassedly,

Chris.

https://windirstat.net/ should sort you out.

_________________
Data Recovery Services in the UK.
https://www.usbrecovery.co.uk/

Dear Lardman.

Thanks - never heard of that one. Will re-whinge if necessary (sorry!)

Yours respectfully

Chris.

Dear Lardman.

This is NOT a re-whinge, it's a THANKYOU! Had a hidden folder on my hard drive called AppData - WinRAR had tried to use it to make tempfiles in of all the stuff I was RAR-ing.

Got my C: real estate back now - a bit of it, anyway - because I found other temp files as well I deleted after carefully checking nothing actually wanted to use them. Do you know how I can use WinRAR to create .RARs on drive F (the external one!) WITHOUT trying to make temp. files on Drive C or I'm just gonna hit the same problem all over again and there won't be any .RARs made because it won't be able to park big enough temp files on C.

Yes, I know this is my own fault for not backing up to the Cloud, like, 4 months ago but you know how prevarication works....!! Is there a different .RAR program I can use that lets me specify WHERE it parks its temp files - I've got 189 gig spare on the external terabyte hard drive so that should be enough for temp files. Hopefully! Or do I bite the bullet and get a second external hard drive (1TB probably, can afford that!) THEN backup C: to the new hard drive and, when C:'s a wedge emptier, THEN start creating .RARs as HOPEFULLY there'll be enough space on the C:drive for its temp. files?

I'd like, ideally, to do the winRAR files now but if you don't know how to stop it parking temp. file elephants on C:, I'll get another external and caddy.

Thanks a LOT for your help, really, I'd never have found that hidden folder if you'd not told me about WinDirStat. Never heard of it!

Yours respectfully

Chris.

Personally i like this better, use as alternative option, https://www.jam-software.com/treesize_free.

_________________
Joep - http://www.disktuna.com - video & photo repair & recovery service

Will try Treesize-Free too - never heard of that one either!

Yours respectfully

Chris.

Paths for "stuff" in winrar are under Options --> Settings --> Paths. Temp file path is the top one.

_________________
Data Recovery Services in the UK.
https://www.usbrecovery.co.uk/

Thank you all for being so helpful - thanks to you I've got control of my C:drive back.

Problem solved thanks to you guys

Yours respectfully

Chris