Why Does My Hard Drive Keep Filling Up and How Can I Fix It?

You are currently viewing Why Does My Hard Drive Keep Filling Up and How Can I Fix It?

As it is true, the hard drive is designed to store our important data. There might be certain times when you notice that the logical partition of the hard disk keeps filling up and its space become running instantly. So, you must be wondering to know that why this is happening.

There might be some basic reasons for this. But there is no particular reason for hard drive keeps filling up with strange behavior. There can be some potential causes for this error such as malware, bloated WinSxS folder, Hibernation settings, System Corruption, System Restore, Temporary Files, other Hidden files, etc.

That makes your hard drive keeps filling up repeatedly. You just need to it may be a deeper issue find out the exact reason then try its fix by using the information listed below.

Why does Hard Drive keep filling up automatically?

Basically, we are going to explain the two scenarios. The reasons might be different and then so would the troubleshooting. So just take a look!

  1. C System Drive keeps filling automatically
  2. D Data Drive keeps filling up automatically.

So, first of all, we will talk about the System Drive keeps filling up automatically. It might happen for several reasons. This is possible if you have been installing and uninstalling software, it will end up bloating the WinSxS folder with orphaned DLL files. Then you must have to see the space allocated to System Restore Points and also disable the Hibernation file.

Before you start the processes, you need to use a free Disk Space Analyzer software to check out which folders on which drive is consuming so much excessive space. If you notice any non-system folders occupying disk space, with data, download, hidden files, etc.

Then you must have to delete all the unnecessary files, manually. After getting some idea, here is what to do need if the C drive or Data drive keeps filling up by itself automatically:

easy fixes applicable to C System Drive

So here are a few easy fixes that you can try to resolve the hard drive keeps filling issue, below!

1. Managing the Hibernation Settings

First of all, you need to do some hibernation setting, so here is how to do this:

  • First of all, you need to Press the WINKEY + X button combo or you can press right-click on the Start button and click on Command Prompt.
  • Next, you need to click on the option of “Yes” for the User Account Control prompt.
  • Here, the Command Prompt window will open up.
  • Now, you should type the command (powercfg.exe /hibernate off) to disable Hibernation.
  • Next, you have to hit the button Enter.          
  • Finally, you should close the Command Prompt window.

2. Perform WinSxS folder cleanup

Now, the next thing you can do to resolve the issue is, you should Perform WinSxS folder cleanup to decrease the size of the folder.

3. Check installed software

You can also check the installed software to see if it is misbehaving and eating up disk space. it is possible that the installed software is generating a lot of log files (.log).  So, in this case, you can install new software.

4. Fixes applicable to both C System Drive and D Data Drive

These easy and effective fixes can be applied to the C System Drive as well as the D Data Drive, to resolve the issue of the hard drive keeps filling up:

5. Fixing File System Corruption

This is an easy way to fix the issue by managing the file system corruption. Here is how to do this:

  • First of all, you have to press the WINKEY + X button combo
  • You can also right-click on the Start button and click on Command Prompt or search for cmd in Cortana,
  • Now you need to right-click on the Command Prompt icon
  • Then click on Run as Administrator.
  • Here you have to click on the option of “Yes” for the UAC Account Control prompt.
  • Then, you need to click on the Command (chkdsk <Partition Letter> /f /v /x)
  • Here a window will be open.
  • Here you have to type in the command to run chkdsk
  • Finally, you need to hit Enter.
  • This will start to find out for errors and fix them.  It will also show up a message saying that Chkdsk cannot run due to the volume being in use by another process.
  • In this case, you can hit Y for scheduling the Disk Check for the next time the system restarts.

6. Detecting and removing malware

Next, you can detect the malware and remove it. You must check if some serious malware infection on your PC that may trigger this strange behavior. To fix this issue, you need to perform a full system scan, which will be so quick scan, and a boot-time scan from the Windows Defender software that you are using.

  • Manage the System Restore Points
  • To resolve the issue of disk space used by system restore points,
  • You need to right-click on your PC icon
  • Then you need to click on Properties.
  • On the left side ribbon, here you have to click on System Protection.
  • Then a mini window will pop up in front of you.
  • Now you have to click on Configure.
  • After that, another mini window will start to pop up.
  • Here you need to move the slider to toggle the maximum storage that might be used when you are creating a System Restore Point.
  • Now, you need to choose the Delete button to delete the created system restore points.
  • Next, you need to click on Apply
  • Then press the option of OK for the changes to take effect.

7. Run Disk Cleanup

  • You have to Run Disk Cleanup Utility.
  • You need to Type in Disk Cleanup in the Cortana Search Box
  • Next, you need to hit Enter to bring it up
  • Here you need to select the appropriate result.

8. Look for Hidden Files

You can also try to fix the issue of the hard drive keeps filling up by using the Show Hidden Files option to find all the hidden files that are taking up so much space on the hard disk. These hidden files might be deleted to free up some space. It has also some RAW data files from games and some utility software. So you have to delete all the files that are not required.

9. Miscellaneous Fixes

This solution can bring up a broad spectrum of easy fixes that you have to undertake to resolve the issue of the hard drive that hard drive keep filling up.

  • First of all, you have to try to uninstall the UWP or Win32 applications that have been installed that are the cause of this issue of eating up free space on your disk.
  • Secondly, you need to use third-party tools like Cleaner to clean up all the junk so that you can free a lot of space.
  • Thirdly, you have to clean up the Recycle Bin to free up space by deleting unwanted files.

Conclusion

We have explained the main reason why the hard drive keeps filling up and also some easy fixes to resolve the issue. You just need to follow the fixes carefully for a good result. So that’s all you need to know about this topic. We hope so this article will help you a lot in this case.

Leave a Reply