Mysterious 100 GB Increase in C Drive Space - Need Assistance!

[drax11]

My PC's C drive recently gained 100 GB of space out of nowhere, and I'm stumped. Any ideas or solutions to this mystery?
Details:
- OS: [Windows 11]
- C Drive:
- Previously- 21 GB free of 246GB
- Now- 120 GB free of 246GB

I've checked for large files and ran disk cleanup and anti-malware scans everything is working fine. Any similar experiences or suggestions for further investigation?

 

[Bighorn]

Not enough information about the computer or Version and Build of Win11. Could be there was a cleanup after the latest Update of Windows or maybe Disk Cleanup was run earlier? Recycle Bin was emptied? Many Notebooks running Win11 come with 256GB SSD/NVMe drives and Desktops have 512GB. Gaining free space is harder to diagnose than loss of space, cause may not show up until a need arises for data previously saved not being found.

 

[Xploit Machine]

Refer this https://www.windows11forums.com/threads/dism-microsoft-pc-manager-guide-run-through.1680

 

[RogerOver]

It might have been the "backup partition" ! (Older automatic backups will be removed, if it is full).

The Windows "Disk Manager" (rightclick on "This PC" then "Manage", then "Manage Disks") doesn't show all partitions you have on your disk; some partitions are hidden. Minitool Partion Wizard or the Chinese Macrorit Partition Expert are much better and will show you all partitions that are on your disk. But be carefull: don't delete the small partitions at the beginning (16 MB; not GB like the others !) and at the end (normally 100 MB) of the disk; they are needed for Windows to run. (The backup partition is somewhere in the middle of the disk; you can empty it or delete the whole partition and add the space to your Windows partition for instance, if you do a backup to an exteranl drive regularly = more secure).

 

[Xploit Machine]

Referring to few topics around this forum, I re-checked my computer configuration, HDD and W11 itself today, I wonder why many people complaint regarding "space" issue .. since first installation of W11 into my computer to date, I had no space issues

I have stock W11Pro with around 90 items of 3rd party applications installed, which takes only around 64GB of space all together ..

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