Reference number: CH001008

Computer is telling me my C drive is full or out of space.

Issue:

Computer is telling me my C drive is full or out of space.

Cause:

If your computer is reporting that the C drive, or your primary hard disk drive is full or out of space, you're likely encountering one or more of the situations listed below.

1. Too many files are on the hard drive occupying all the space.
2. Hard disk drive is not big enough to accommodate all your needs.
3. Drive is failing and sections of the drive are being marked as bad.

Answer:

To resolve this issue follow each of the below steps. Often simply cleaning the hard disk drive of old files is usually enough.

Clean up the hard disk drive

Follow the steps on document CH000528, which contains steps on how to clean your hard disk drive of old files, and how to conserve drive space.

Need larger hard disk drive

If you find yourself frequently running out of disk space and/or the above recommendation did not help resolve your issue, it may be necessary to upgrade or add another hard disk drive to your computer.

Add another hard drive

If you have a decent sized hard drive (larger than 100GB for more recent computers), but are running out of disk space, adding a new hard disk drive will give you additional storage without having to erase the existing hard drive. This could be either an internal or external hard disk drive.

Replace current hard drive

If your hard disk drive is less than 100GB, you may want to consider replacing the current hard disk drive with a new hard disk drive. Unfortunately, if you do decide to do this, you will need to reinstall the operating system and all the programs again.

• See our hard disk drive buying tips page for additional tips on purchasing a new hard drive.

Hard disk drive is failing

Disk drive utilities such as Windows scandisk, will mark sections of the hard disk drive as bad if errors are encountered during a scan. Sections that are marked will be skipped and have no data stored on them, which can cause the hard disk drive to quickly run out of space if large portions of the drive are marked.

If you're running Microsoft Windows when running scandisk, check the option "Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors." Additional help and information about running scandisk can be found on our scandisk help page.

Additional information:

• Additional information about determining how much hard disk drive space you have can be found on document CH000369.