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Dell XPS 8700 with Solid State "C" Drive Storage remaining doesn't balance

I have a strange situation. I have a Dell XPS8700 with a 250GB Solid State "C" drive and I am getting a Low Storage Remaining on that drive. The interesting think is I've measured the storage used in EVERY FOLDER on the "C" drive including the Desktop, Documents, Downloads, Music, Pictures, and Videos, and the storage used totals less than 85 GB. However, Windows Explorer show only 18.8 GB free of 224GB... Are there any hidden storage locations not showing in Windows Explorer?User generated imageUser generated image
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Hello Joe,

Thanks for the info. I went into the Windows Explorer and checked the Hidden Items and it didn't change the usage numbers. I'm still showing less than 85 GB used when I add up all folders..
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Roshan,

I have attached a copy of Disk Management showing 224GB readyUser generated image
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I've measured the storage used in EVERY FOLDER on the "C" drive
How are you measuring the storage?
Go to the Control Panel, System and Security, System, Advanced System Settings, System Protection.
It's likely (and likely should be) set to On for the C:\ drive.
Select the C:\> drive and configure.  Change Max Usage to say 10%, seeing whether the estimated usage in GB suits your usage, e.g, if you've ever had to back out software by reverting to an earlier state with system restore.
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I'm just right clicking on the folder icon in Windows Explorer and writing down the disk usage for each..
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My Windows 8.1 system does not show a "System Protection" option. In the Advanced System Settings I have three options: "Performance", "User Profiles" and "Startup and Recovery"
> I'm just right clicking on the folder icon in Windows Explorer and writing down the disk usage for each..

Are you including all of the Hidden files in the root folder, such as <hiberfil.sys> and <pagefile.sys>?

Also, in the screenshots you posted, I don't see any Hidden and/or System folders, some of which can be quite large, such as $Recycle.bin, Boot, Config.Msi, ESD, ProgramData, Recovery, etc. Regards, Joe
Here's a screenshot of Advanced System Settings
User generated imageSo if that's not what you are seeing, can we assume that you don't have administrator rights on this machine, and if so will you be contacting someone with admin rights?

Aaah! you've not clicked on the System Protection tab.
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I finally found it. My system shows 0 GB available for system restore as "Disable System Protection" is chosen.
Well system restore isn't using the space.
A gui tool for finding space use is WinDirStat.  It's available at http://ninite.com
Use it to see what's taking up the space.  I also suggest looking at what programs you have installed.
There are lots of places where disk usage can be hidden, such as resource forks. However you should also check the drive for corruption by opening an elevated command prompt (right click, run as administrator) doing
chkdsk c: /f
and agreeing to run on next startup and restarting (gracefully).  Then in eventvwr, check the application log for a wininit entry, and if you can't find the results of the check disk, repeat.
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Thanks Joseph, I will run the chkdsk tomorrow. I'm wondering if it could have been caused by a disk problem I had a few months ago. I installed a second hard drive in this system to use as a backup. I had also partitioned the original hard disk into two partitions for backup purposes as well. Well, one day my system would not boot. I was getting an error saying the system was locked. I was on tech support with Dell and also Microsoft. Neither had a solution and said I would have to restore the system from scratch.

Well, I decided to remove the second hard drive to see if that would make it boot. It did not and I still had the system locked error. So I removed the originally installed hard drive leaving only the solid state drive. Low and behold, the system booted.

So, I put the second drive in my old Dell XPS 8300 and it ran a disk repair utility and told me the disk was corrupt and could not be repaired. I then put the original disk in my old system to run the disk repair utility and it repaired the disk.

I couldn't believe it. What has Microsoft done to us? What could I have done if I had gotten rid of my old system?  When I purchased this new system, it took me 3 days to get it up and running. It took 1 and 1/2 days to upgrade to Windows 8.1 from Windows 8.
Did you comment on my proposal yet?
<edit> earlier comment context my confusing another experts post as the authors.  Sorry McKnife </edit>
windirstat will find windows.old
before deleting it, backup everything
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Hi McKnife,

Thanks for your input. No I haven't commented yet. I need to get a project completed for a client before downloading and running new software. I also want to get all important data transferred to my old system..  I do appreciate your suggestions and am looking forward to implementing your suggestions.
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Excellent solutions. Thank you very much!!