3.2gb of unknown detected by windirstat

[Elliah]

i just noticed my harddisk size shrink one morning even though i didn't install or download anything spectacularly large. aside from the fact that i had my computer go to sleep the night before. how do i get rid of this space that's hogging my hard disk?
my computer is a dell inspiron 1420 running on vista sp1.

 

[gbhall]

That 3.2 Gb is probably the hibernated operating system. I don't know offhand if there are settings to cause it to disappear if it successfully wakes up (I do know many people find it wont wake up !) and it will probably hang around until you find out how to clean it away yourself.

 

[kimsland]

I agree, but you could also:

Download FULLDISK it will show you where all the big files are

 

[Elliah]

how do i clear the file then? it's expanded itself to 4.0gb >_< it's taking over my harddrive bit by bit....rarrrrrr

 

[kimsland]

Clear what file exactly? Where did fulldisk say all the space is taken up?

C:\?\?\?

 

[Elliah]

what's the difference between fulldisk and windirstat?

 

[kimsland]

I hadn't used Windirstat until right this moment!

Looks good
But I still like the circle graph, and I think Windirstat takes longer

 

[Elliah]

ok...so this had been an intermittent problem from time to time...and usually i ignore the expanding 'unknown' because after a week or two, when i run mcafee quickclean, it will miraculously be deleted...however, the problem came back and refused to go away this time...with unknown expanding each time i switch on the computer...>_<