MY NEW hp eNVY 17 8th gen 128 GB laptop saying storage is full

[ClareVD]

my husband transferred some existing files on to this new laptop and shortly after I got a pop up saying storage is low and now its full! When I look at the drives it shows E; Recovery drive is almost full and D Data drive is almost empty and C drive is completely empty. I tried to physically move the files dragging and dropping but we couldn't open any of the documents so it didn't work. I don't know what to do next or how to free up space this was sold to us of having lots of memory.

[WAWood]

@ClareVD 

Let's first get our terms straight so we're both taling about the same thing ...

The term "memory" refers to the system memory sticks that are present in your PC. This can range from 2G, to 16GB or more -- depending on the capacity and number of sticks installed. This value does NOT grow or shrink over time.

The term "disk space" refers to the amount of used and free space on formatted areas, known as partitions, on your disk drive. The use space grows, and the free space shrinks, as files get written to the disk drive.

The differences are very important because dealing with shortages in memory or disk space are very different issues.

I believe what we are talking about in your case is "disk space" not "memory".

As to the Recovery drive being almost full, that is the way it is supposed to be -- as that drive is ONLY used to do a factory restore on your PC.  If you (or someone else) has set your Downloads to go to the Recovery drive, that is a SERIOUS problem that you need to correct.

Normally, whichever Browser you use to download stuff chooses the C: drive as its default location for files because that is where your user Profile stuff is stored.  You go into the Browser and change the default Download location to the 😧 (data) drive to prevent this from happening in the future.

And, while I don't want to dispute whether or not this PC has "lots" of space, 128GB is really more than you typically need for a laptop.  I have several PCs running Win10, and all of them use 80GB (or smaller) drives and NONE of them are running out of disk space.

If the C: drive is full or nearly full, here are some things you can do to recover some of the disk space:
http://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/3012-disk-cleanup-open-use-windows-10-a.html
http://winaero.com/blog/how-to-clean-up-winsxs-folder-in-windows-10/

Also, the community Win10 Forums has the following suggestions:
https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/83441-free-up-drive-space-windows-10-a.html

Good Luck