moving from HP-1205 to HP m01-52059 - old system 1TB hard disk 1/2 full new system all full why?

[bobshettler]

when converting to new system my old 1/2 full 1TB SSD hard drive completely fills the new system 1TB SSD hard drive. Most of the data is personal files of photographs. How to I fix this without manually compressing all the photos?

[MysteriousMe]

Welcome to HP Support Community, @bobshettler 

Thank you for posting your query, I will be glad to help you.

Step 1 — Use Windows Storage Sense to clean safely

This will remove:

Temporary files

Old system files

Windows.old (can be 20–40GB)

Cached updates

Steps:

Settings → System → Storage

Enable Storage Sense

Click Temporary files

Select everything except Downloads if needed

Click Remove files

This alone may free 20–80GB depending on your old system.

Step 2 — Delete old Windows installation (common after migrating drives)

If you see a folder named C:\Windows.old, remove it:

Open Disk Cleanup

Select C:

Click Clean up system files

Tick Previous Windows installation(s)

Clean.

This removes leftover system data from the old PC.

Step 3 — Identify what’s consuming space (this is key)

Use WinDirStat or TreeSize Free.

These tools will visually show:

Duplicate folders

Old profiles copied during migration

Giant hidden files (hiberfil.sys, pagefile.sys)

Multiple photo libraries

Look for:
 “Users\OldUsername”
“Windows.old”
 “AppData\Local\Temp”
 “ProgramData” bloat

You can safely delete old user folders if the new PC has its own active user account.

Step 5 — Consider storing photos on a dedicated drive

If photographs are your largest data and you want the OS space back:

Move Pictures library to a secondary HDD/SSD

Or store images on an external SSD

Or use OneDrive/Google Photos for syncing (optional)

Windows allows you to move an entire library without breaking anything.

I hope this helps.

Take care and have a good day.