I am having an issue with a laptop, where Windows incorrectly reports that the volume is almost full and has only 400MB free space on a 60GB drive. I know for a fact I have not put that much data on the drive (unless Windows exploded and took up the entire drive). After checking the drive with Explorer and WinDirStat, I have been able to account for only 20GB of the used space (about 1/3 of the drive). I Analyzed the drive with Defrag, and see the regular speckling of Red, Green and Blue, and what apparently should be free space is one huge, contiguous file. Have already tried CHKDSK /F and Disk Cleanup, etc. Does anyone have any idea what might be causing this?? How to fix it??

Do you have "show hidden files & folders" enabled? What about "hide protected operating system files"...are they hidden? This will explain how to show them all: http://www.xtra.co.nz/help/0,,4155-...

What file format is being used on the HDrive, FAT32 or NTFS?

"where Windows incorrectly reports that the volume is almost full" Seen posts like this one for years and Windows was never the problem. "I Analyzed the drive with Defrag, and see the regular speckling of Red, Green and Blue, and what apparently should be free space is one huge, contiguous file." How are you coming to this conclusion? Was this blue? If you look a little closer at the description for blue it's contiguous file(S)not file. This would indicate you have many files but they don't require defragging. system update files can be cleaned out make sure your temp folders are empty clear internet explorer files Uninstall unused apps and delete their folders Using search do a *.* on your c:. This will list all files. Click on the size column to sort them. Look at largest to smallest and see what everything is. See if you can figure out where your space is going. Imagine the power if you knew how to internet search

Try TreeSize which will give you a break down of where your space is being used up.