What is this OTHER that has filled up my computer storage?

[ShannonN]

When I look at my Storage in the Other section there are 238 GB of unknown.  It says "These are some of the largest folders we couldn't characterize".  Then it has a list of some others that it could find.  How do I clean all of that out?

[WAWood]

@ShannonN

Hello;

Allow me to welcome you to the HP forums!

From what I recall, the DV7 laptops did not come with Win10 preinstalled, and if that is the case with yours, that mean you did the Win10 Upgrade -- and that is know to leave a lot of "crud" lying around, cluttering up the drive.

Here are some suggestions for removing that stuff:

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/

Good Luck

[ShannonN]

Nope, already tried those.  Last night I took off a few movies since they were large.  It gave me more space but since last night my 'Other' storage has gone up from 261gb to 305gb now and all I did was remove things.  What the heck?  There has got to be a way to figure this out. 

[ShannonN]

I added software called TreeSize and it showed me what I was looking for, I think.  Problem is I'm not sure what I should delete or not.  I feel like these are duplicates but can't tell for sure.  It seems like its counting all my videos, pics, docs in two locations.  Their proper place on the C drive and also this 'Other' section of storage.

[offost]

I have been having the same problem, and am happy to see (but not happy for you, personally!) that I am not alone in this idiotic and frustrating situation. 

I have made countless searches online for how to solve this. 

You have related a very telling episode - that you simply made 2 (large personal video file) deletions, and, suddenly, something gets added into the recovery drive!! **bleep**??

Clearly, something is wrong. 

This should not happen. 

I have painstakingly gone through and deleted over 500 jpg and pdf files, and a few sound and vid files from an iphone or possibly camera. So the overall personal files quantity is lower, when I do a disc scan. 

But not the 'other files' 

I would greatly appreciate someone to reveal what is happening here. 

If I do land up paying someone very smart in these things to solve this, I will happily post. 

And I will lambaste where appropriate. 

[mdklassen]

Something is missing from the screen-shot that you posted:

305 GB is 305,000 MB
--------------------

   5700 MB C:\SwSetup  --------------- downloaded HP device-drivers
  122.0 MB C:\AMD      --------------- AMD video-card device-drivers
   6.92 MB ...\iCloudDrive ----------- iCloud
   2.55 MB (root)
   2.34 MB Favorites
   1.50 MB temp
   1.25 MB C:\inetpub
   0.10 MB ..\Contacts
   0.01 MB ..\Searches

The display only shows 5.7 GB, out of the 305 GB.  Weird.

Did you "empty" the Recycle Bin ???

If you stored those [large] videos on the 'Desktop', and Windows took a "checkpoint", then a copy of those videos has been saved inside that "checkpoint".