Think the first thing I might do is run the windows Disk Cleanup program. Usually find it in control panel,,, Administrative Tools. Most computers if you right click and run as administrator.. will do additional cleaning of the system files.

Every time I do the "disk cleanup" I do gain between 5GB and 9GB but then the computer goes back to "no disk space available" in a short time even when I did not use the computer at all.

Well,, I might go to control panel, System.. then in my left margin is 'System Protection'

Highlight the drive letter and press the Configure button. See what it says is used and consider setting it for max of 5% if its sitting way big. 5% of 300gb for shadows and restore points = more than plenty .

You might want to enable view hidden on your folders and take a look at your drive.. maybe you'll see something.

Right click on the start button and the open Windows Explorer. Then right click on the C drive and check properties. You will see the size of your drive and how much is used.

Have you emptied the recycle bin?

Have you installed any software recently?

Do you have a digital camera and load the pictures on the computer?

There is a program called WinDirStat that if free, and it allows you to "see" what is on your hard drive.
The program shows a graphical representation of everything on your drive. Different file types are shown in different colors, such as all graphics files will be one color, etc. If you are careful about deleting, you can easily find the problem and either move them or delete them. Most file names can be googled to find out what they do. Most of the time, I find that I have too many screenshots of games or photos. Best of luck.

Here is a link that might be useful: WinDirStat

mikie.....in System Protection, it said Current usage: 0 bites and gave no % available.

Yes, zeuspaul, checked that site frequently and trash is empty. No software downloaded. No camera attached.

Program files less than 3GB

Jedoba ... computer says not enough memory to download anything.

Is this a virus???

Probably just a windows problem.
But it could be virus or someone has given you an open server.

Do you have a Torrent program for downloading maybe tv programs or games ? They are just like a free for all server.

You need to find whatever it is... need to view hidden and look around or use some kind of pie chart if you don't see it. Figure out what is using that space.

What version windows ?

Might look in your user temp files & windows temp file.
My user temp is "C:\Users\mike\AppData\Local\Temp" win8.1 probably 7 is same or near same but its hidden folders.

Might look in your Task Manger or performance monitor for 'paged pool' or its hidden file C:\pagefile.sys

Might look in Disk Management.. what type of partition does it show for your windows drive ? Dynamic or Primary Partition ?

You said when you run Disk Cleanup, it takes out a few gigabytes but they come back quickly... Run it and see where those gigabytes are. Might be a good starting place to figuring it out.

This post was edited by mikie on Fri, Jan 16, 15 at 14:24

Ylime-
I doubt it is a virus. How old is this computer and what is the operating system? If you have a 300GB hard drive, I suspect this computer is an older model. My computer is older, too: it's 7 years old, has a 500GB hard drive, and I've used 305GB. I don't have anything unnecessary stored on the computer other than about 20GB of photos. When I first got my computer and added a few necessary programs, I probably only had about 150GB used, but it's inevitable with adding things in small amounts over the years that usage creeps up.

All of this is to say that you have probably pretty much filled up your hard drive through normal accretion and that doing a disk cleanup doesn't do much for you because there is only so much space that can be cleaned up unless you start uninstalling some things. Have you gone into the Control Panel and looked at what programs you have installed and their sizes? Maybe there is some stuff in there that you really don't need anymore. Also, if this computer is as old as I suspect, it might be time to consider a new one, or at least to install a new, larger hard drive. Totally apart from your space needs, all hard drives fail in time, so it might be wise to replace this one before it does, too.

This post was edited by kudzu9 on Sat, Jan 17, 15 at 16:24

Kudzu9 -- the computer is less than 2 years old and has Windows 8.1 on it.

I did go to the Control Panel and deleted everything that I figured I didn't need.

That did increase my space up to 8GB and I immediately turned the computer off and did not use it anymore. Next morning when I turned it on, it had less than 1GB available -- after NO USE.

It was a cheap less than $200 laptop at Walmart. Can that be why the drive is doing this?

I download no movies, no videos, no games, no music. Just Turbo Tax, Kaspersky, and NeatWorks. That's about it.

I give up

Ylime-
That business about shutting it off and then having it almost completely out of space when you next booted up doesn't make sense. I'm not saying you are wrong, but that's weird. Is it possible you have some backup of your hard drive enabled that is chewing up space?

The only other thing I can think of is to get some detailed info on just how all your hard drive space is used. Below is a link to several pieces of software you can use to figure out if there are things hogging space that you are unaware of. I haven't had to use any of these so can't recommend the best one, but pick one that sounds good and see what it tells you. Then report back here. Good luck.

P.S.: I don't think the cheapness of the laptop necessarily is responsible for this problem. It is possible that the hard drive is getting corrupted or on the point of failure, but that's just another guess.

Here is a link that might be useful: Analyze hard drive

Some typical repairs for win8.1 run from
Command Prompt (admin)
ChkDsk /F
DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth
SFC /ScanNow

ChkDsk will ask to run at next restart Y or N. Run that first if you have not already.

Other two commands take normally less than 15 min each but with your full disk,, who knows.

Sure would be nice to know what the files are though that are filling things up.
Takes a while to write gigabytes to the hard drive unless its a SSD. Next time you delete gigabytes open 'Resource Manager' first and click the disk tab.. maybe you can tell what is writing?

This post was edited by mikie on Sun, Jan 18, 15 at 20:15

Just wanted to give you an update on my problem.

I was able to gain back all the lost GB. I went on the "PC settings", clicked on "update and recovery" and just let it take the computer back to where it started [2 years ago!]

Of course I saved all important files before I did that.

If it happens again, at least I know how to get my computer back. I just wish I knew what caused it in the first place so I can avoid doing that again!

Thanks for all your advice!

I'd use one of the programs on the linked page that kudzu9 recommended - to find out what the newly arrived files actually are, which would be a clue to what's going on.

WinDirStat is the most well known, but perhaps Treesize would work better using the "Age of Files" tab, which should show the most recent files that were created.
This might be "Modified" on any of those apps, to do the same thing.

It's been a long time since I used Windows, BUT ... it was prone to leaving abandoned TMP files all over the place if the computer shut down unexpectedly. And some software is just messy that way.

And CHKDSK would recover a lot of "orphaned" files that were taking up space, again, especially if you didn't shut down smoothly. They often start with ~ and are normally hidden.

Does it still do that?

http://www.wizardwrx.com/HackingForHumans/Clean_Up_User_Temp_Dir.html
http://pcsupport.about.com/od/maintenance/ht/manualtempvista.htm
http://support.microsoft.com/KB/92635

Ylime-
So how much free space do you have now? I hope it is fixed, but we still don't know what was causing it. I wish you would have checked it out a little further so we aren't back at square one in a year or two. Anyway, good luck.