Why BootCamp drive almost full?

I am puzzled as to why the Windows side of Bootcamp has used over 69GB of storage of the 75GB assigned when doing the partition.

I have no files or downloads on there. I use purely for Battlefield 3 which I hardly ever use. Installed the game aprox 6 months ago (thats how old my MBP is also) and I only ever play online so no game saves.

Any idea what is eating up the space and how to reduce or view whats taking up the room?

Just done a Disc erase on Mac side in Disc Utility and it has just come up. 'Your start up Disc is almost Full' Assume this is what it is alerting me about??

Apple2 said:

Install "Omni Disc Sweeper" on the OSX partition. It is a free program that determines what files are taking up space on you hard drive. Once it's installed, open it and select the bootcamp drive when prompted.Wait for the index to finish, and you'll have your culprit.

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Thanks. Since posting I have downloaded a similar program, however I am unsure what the following shows me. Anyone tell me what is normal and what isn't? Can I bin any of this? TIA

Seeking HELP!

MacCrank said:

I am puzzled as to why the Windows side of Bootcamp has used over 69GB of storage of the 75GB assigned when doing the partition.

I have no files or downloads on there. I use purely for Battlefield 3 which I hardly ever use. Installed the game aprox 6 months ago (thats how old my MBP is also) and I only ever play online so no game saves.

Any idea what is eating up the space and how to reduce or view whats taking up the room?

Just done a Disc erase on Mac side in Disc Utility and it has just come up. 'Your start up Disc is almost Full' Assume this is what it is alerting me about??

Click to expand...

OK, this has happened again on my 3rd replacement MBP with 65GB on the partition assigned for Windows.

I still can't work out where this space has gone for just one game on the Windows side.

I run no other programs or games, only 1 game, Steam and Teamspeak.

When clicking the C Drive (bootcamp) I can't pinpoint where all 60.7GB has been used. The game should only take up +/- 16GB. So wheres the other 49GB gone?

I have defrag'd, disk cleaned, got rid of some programs and free'd up 3GB of space. Then a day later without downloading or saves it has all gone and can't even use the internet to browse as it says 'low disk space'.

The only way like last time is to delete the partition and start again however this happened before and I'm back to where I am now. Don't want to be having to do this every 6-9months. Something is eating my disk usage and I would prefer to find this.


Any ideas guys?

Hi. I have recently (past 1-2 weeks) upgraded from 4GB RAM to Crucial 16GB.
Thanks I shall check this out. On the Mac side at the moment seeing if I can see anything.

snorkelman said:

has been a while since you posted the screen shot, but it shows a Windows.old folder

have you got one this time around? if you do chances are it'll be on the root of the windows boot drive

those can take up a load of space (usually get them if you do a fresh reinstall windows without wiping the drive first)

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I shall try and get a screen shot later on today. What's the best way of showing it? Can't remember if I downloaded something to show this last time?? However what will this show me?

What do you mean re chances are it'll be on the roots of the windows boot drive? Sorry not a clue about this sort of stuff.

Thanks

biohead said:

I'm curious as to why it's showing the windows folder as Windows.old. That generally means Windows has been reinstalled at some point, but the old installation was left on for some reason. Do you also have normal Windows folder on your bootcamp partition as well as Windows.old?

Edit: Just noticed snorkelman has mentioned exactly the same!

Click to expand...

Really? I have no idea what this is or if its on my current MBP. How can I tell? Where will it show it on the Mac side or better to look on Windows side?

I has done a disk cleanup. Shouldn't think have cleared this so called 'Windows.old' folder?

I may have had to reinstall windows on this MBP before due to the same issue again. Can't remember as I have had 3 MBP replacements from Apple and had to do the Windows partition and install a few times. I know it has been a headache thou!

snorkelman said:

Image

root of boot drive is the top level of your Windows partition above image shows you how to get to it

click on start button in bottom left corner, click on computer from the menu that appears, click on 'Local Disk (C' in the submenu that pops out


That'll take you to a view of the contents of the boot drive as per below, you're looking for presence of a yellow folder called 'windows.old'

Image

Click to expand...

Many thanks for your time and effort.

I have tried right clicking on 'Computer' but C Drive (bootcamp) doesn't show. However I just clicked C Drive and it seems I don't have Windows.old only a folder called 'Windows', unless I am not looking in the right place.

I have just this min turned off my Hiberation mode, rebooted and amazingly now I have 12.9GB FREE! It was around 50MB before the disabling of Hiberation!!

What else is there!? Lol

Joking aside I'm still missing space.. Say around 30-35GB from my partitioned 65GB drive.

Thanks guys!

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P.s the page file thing I am a little concerned about as I have read its not too good. Is this right?

MacCrank said:

P.s the page file thing I am a little concerned about as I have read its not too good. Is this right?

Click to expand...

Right OK...

So I though why not let's try this. I tried this before but with my 4GB of RAM previously in and it was coming up with pop up windows warning with when tasking and gaming however now with 16GB maybe it won't??

Anyways... I have just selected 'no paging files' restarted and that Free'd up 15.7GB so I have now Free'd up the following:

(65GB Bootcamp partition)

Turned off Hibernation - which Free'd - 12.9GB
Changed to 'No paging file' - which Free'd - 15.7GB

So TOTAL Saved = 28.6GB

So that means my 1x Game & Steam is taking up 36.4Gb which seems a little more like it but still a lot more than expected Right?

Is it OK to run it with No paging files?

It says:
Minimum allowed: 16MB
Recommended: 24,441MB
Currently allocated: 16,294MB (which now says 0)

snorkelman said:

certainly sounds like you don't have a windows.old this time

I'm pretty sure that it would be a visible folder if it was on your system, but I'll check n see just in case its a hidden file



I wouldn't turn it off completely but if you have 16GB Ram then it may be pretty large

personally I'd set a fixed min and max size (1024 min and 1024 max) so it stays constant

following will hopefully show you how to set it to a fixed size

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNfWfAU6Qy4

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the 36.4GB used out if 65GB covers the game, steam and Windows 7 itself

probably 16 or 17 Gig for the game and steam plus another 19 or 20 gig for windows 7 itself

that would be as expected

Click to expand...

Thanks Snorkelman!! Makes sense now I didn't realise Windows 7 took up that much. I can now sleep!

Re page file - I shall change it to what you recommend then.

Does it take your RAM more if page filing is set to Zero then and possibly causing more wear in it? Trying to get my head around it all. Thanks again

snorkelman said:

main reason I always set a small page file rather setting it to zero is just to ensure nothing screwy occurs

e.g. In years gone by I've seen certain programs fall thru the floor in terms of performance and run like treacle when there was no page file present on a windows box, even though the system had loads of RAM available.

Turn it back on (even at a fixed restricted size) and they'd then run as expected.

as a result I've always just stuck with having a small one set regardless of how much RAM the machine has installed.

Click to expand...

Thanks dude. Yeah I have already set it to your recommended 1024-1024 and restarted just to b safe. I'm happy to give up just over 1GB of space having just Free'd nearly 29GB! ;-)

I found this an interesting read http://lifehacker.com/5426041/understanding-the-windows-pagefile-and-why-you-shouldnt-disable-it

Cheers again, a HUGE help!