Hard drive getting full

I have an Asus Vivo laptop and this morning went to backup to an external drive but keep getting the message that that external drive is full even after I formatted it. Now I have looked at the content of my C: drive and frankly I am at a loss as to how to free up some of the remaining space. I have tried installed apps, a whole extraordinary long list of entries for example System32 and it has so many very small files/folders in it, some of which like the Xbox entries I cannot delete without permission and heck I thought I was the permission being always logged on as the Administrator.
The other Windows folders are similar with very small entries of low MB's and even some being in KB's!!
I have tried clean disk feature but with very little being picked up.
Any thoughts appreciated.

What kind of backup?

What is the used space of the source and the capacity of the target?

Your pic shows folders called disk backup they might be large

Popular free software to show you space being used on your disk

Curious as to:
What those backup folders contain?
Why are there 3 of them?
Why you would backup anything to the C: drive as apposed to an external drive?

The first thing I'd do, to free up space on any HD is to get rid of the JUNK. Leave the Windows files alone, as they don't GROW, but the JUNK certainly does by even thousands of files per day for a busy user.
JUNK includes, but is not limited to, any file with the extension of: .tmp, .old, .bac, .log. However, Temporary Internet Files, like from Firefox, Edge or Chrome, do not use any of those extensions, but are easy to delete from a command line.

I've gone into this Cleanup concept at great length in another topic, so I won't repeat it here, but that's where I'd start. (as a retired Computer tech of 40+ years.)

Good Luck, Mate!
TM

ICIT2LOL said:

I have an Asus Vivo laptop and this morning went to backup to an external drive but keep getting the message that that external drive is full even after I formatted it. Now I have looked at the content of my C: drive and frankly I am at a loss as to how to free up some of the remaining space. I have tried installed apps, a whole extraordinary long list of entries for example System32 and it has so many very small files/folders in it, some of which like the Xbox entries I cannot delete without permission and heck I thought I was the permission being always logged on as the Administrator.
The other Windows folders are similar with very small entries of low MB's and even some being in KB's!!
I have tried clean disk feature but with very little being picked up.
Any thoughts appreciated.

Click to expand...

How big is the 970/ 500, 1TB?
Why is the external not working?
Do you have too many Restore Points or is it even on?
Do you use any of the file cleaners like CCleaner or other?

You should connect the external drive and then post a screenshot of Disk Management, for which you need to be signed is as Admin.

Your C: drive is full because those backups should have been put on the external drive!

Also "...external drive is full even after I formatted it", doesn't make much sense. ccleaner, dism++ can recover lots of space.

Not that it would happen every time, but CCleaner is "Capable" of disabling your Windows. That's what it did to me, the first time I tried it. NO MAS!

Just for fun, would you open up a Command prompt (Run: CMD) and enter these commands, one at a time and hit ENTER after you type each one.

Del /F /S /Q C:\*.tmp
Del /F /S /Q C:\*.old
Del /F /S /Q C:\*.log
Del /F /S /Q C:\*.bak

By simply running those four commands, you'll rid your C: drive of many Junk files, possibly representing many Megabytes of space.
Let me know how that worked for you. (Please)
By the way, what browser(s) are you using?

And, if it works good for you, I have several other commands that you can run to get rid of even more Junk.

Any commands that I may give you here, are all a part of my "Cleanup.bat" batch file program.
I run my batch file every day, to prevent the buildup of junk files on my SSD. At the end of every run, I get a message like this:

And, that was after just one day's use of my home PC. I shudder to think what that number would be after, say, one year!!!

Good Luck,
TechnoMage

That's not my experience. I have been using Crap Cleaner and its ilk for decades and never hosed my system. I use many registry cleaners likewise. Even set to "dangerous" I have never hosed my PC.

I wish I could remember the app that I used onWin95 or earlier that found hundreds of faulty links in the registry of a fresh install of windows.

That version of Windows has a progress bar in green and yellow, with moving dots that repeated many times. After running his app, it would only go through two or three sequences.

Windows 'Disk Cleanup' is my favourite as it can delete the Windows update cache and Windows.old.

But I do use ccleaner and the Wise cleaner.

CCleaner has NEVER caused any problems on any Windows or Linux for me. I keep reading that and wonder about the operator.

Cowboy said:

CCleaner has NEVER caused any problems on any Windows or Linux for me. I keep reading that and wonder about the operator.

Click to expand...

I have use CCleaner for years and actually PAID for it rather than using the free version because I like it so much. It's one of the 1st things I install on a new PC

ChrisPbass said:

I have use CCleaner for years and actually PAID for it rather than using the free version because I like it so much. It's one of the 1st things I install on a new PC

Click to expand...

I use Bleachbit on Linux not CCleaner. Also the paid version many more options.

Cowboy said:

I use Bleachbit on Linux not CCleaner. Also the paid version many more options.

Click to expand...

Good for you, but this forum is about Windows.

Ok thanks everyone and I am really sorry for late reply and I see that those backups were mentioned and I use AOMEI to backup my drive onto an external hard drive and I am now just wondering if those backups were repeated onto my C: drive somehow and I just might try deleting those because they are a complete backup of the C: drive as it is.
Just as a matter of interest my external drive is only showing one backup of my C: drive so those backups on the C: drive may be the problem. I shall also try those command prompt instructions to see what they do

Ok I have deleted those disk backups on my C: drive and C: drive is now showing 380GB of free space as opposed to the 64GB free space it was showing before. Now what is now making me wonder is why those backups were made on the C: drive while I was using AOMEI to use the E: drive - the external drive for the backup destination?? One possibility is maybe I shut down the computer forgetting the backup was in progress and the backup resumed as soon as I booted the machine again?? Is that something that could be possible??

Computers are totally obedient, so, if they were on C; drive it's probable that you put them there inadvertently! I know that Macrium's interface does take some learning. I'm pleased that you are seeing progress.

Maybe, just maybe, you shouldn't be doing a backup if you don't control where it's going. Eh Mate?

I've been using "Ghost" for all my backups and clones, for 27 years and it's never put a backup where I didn't want it.
It may be a good time for you to change your backup program. ?

Cheers Mate!
TM

Any imaging program will write where the user tells it to.I've been making images a long, long time and so far have never made a mistake where I put one. But since I have so many external drives I know I could make a mistake, so out of habit I always check my destination drive afterwards to make sure it's in the right place as well as check to see if I need to delete any old images.

TechnoMage2021 said:

I've been using "Ghost" for all my backups and clones, for 27 years and it's never put a backup where I didn't want it.
It may be a good time for you to change your backup program. ?

Click to expand...

Yes TM and mate I now realise in hindsight (wonderful eh?) and being too gung ho doing these backups I have tried to put more than two whole disk C: drive 500GB backups onto a 1TB external drive which of course is obviously going to be rejected as I was getting messages that the destination drive did not have enough space to do that next backup

glasskuter said:

I know I could make a mistake, so out of habit I always check my destination drive afterwards to make sure it's in the right place as well as check to see if I need to delete any old images.

Click to expand...

Yes glasscutter I know now as I said to TM that is I have been really a tad careless in watching and realising what the software was telling me. So lesson learnt though I do tend to rush into things and not being a bit more careful in doing what I do.

Anyway I thank you both and everyone who commented on my post I am really appreciative