Problem: Recently, I had the privilege to work on a computer, that according to the customer was always running out of space. That surprised me because the computer had a Samsung 750GB EVO SSD. The computer was a Lenovo ThinkCentre A70z running Windows 7. We had upgraded the computer from a traditional hard drive to a SSD a year ago and I was sure they had plenty of space. I decided to dig into the issue and find out what the problem was.

I noticed right away using Windows Explorer that drive C had around 75GB of free space. I browsed to C:\Users\<username>. I right-clicked on their user folder and selected the general tab. Underneath the general tab I saw their user account was using only 80GB-90GB of space. I thought this was odd.

I then downloaded my trusty WinDirStat utility. I ran the tool and left it scan the folders on the computer. What I saw was quite puzzling. WinDirStat said there was only 180GB of the SSD used. However, when I went under “Computer” using Windows Explorer I showed approximately 600GB of space being used.

I decided to do a Disk cleanup on the SSD. The disk cleanup utility found 5.5GB of unnecessary files. I cleaned the computer but that didn’t account for the extra 400GB of files lurking somewhere on the SSD.

Thinking there may have been something weird with the Samsung SSD, I downloaded and installed the Samsung Magician Software. I ran the program and everything indicated that the SSD was in excellent condition.

Solution: I decided to try one more disk analyzer tool for Windows 7. I downloaded SpaceSniffer. Not having real high hopes, I ran the program and I instantly saw two huge files lurking on the hard drive. I noticed they were stored under a C:\RRbackups\SZ\<folder>. I tried to browse to the RRbackups folder but I got an “access denied” message. I entered the whole file path location in Windows Explorer and I was able to find the backup folders. There were a couple folders.

I right-clicked on the first folder and sure enough it held almost 200GB of data. I browsed the folder and there were a bunch of worthless folders and files. I clicked the folder and hard deleted it. I then right-clicked on the second folder underneath RRbackups and sure enough this folder also had over 200GB of files. I hard deleted this folder as well. <Disclaimer> Be absolutely positive you don’t need these files before deleting. Make sure you have a current backup of your computer.

I then went to drive C using Windows Explorer, and sure enough I had just freed up around 400GB of space on the SSD. I tried to browse to the RRbackups folder again and I still got an “Access Denied” message. I wanted to remove this folder as well. However, I couldn’t right click on the folder and change permissions since it was hidden.

To fix that issue, I went to Windows Explorer and clicked Organize > Folder and Search Options.

From there I selected the View tab and unchecked Hide Protected operating system files.

You will see the following prompt. Select Yes and save your changes.

I could then view the RRbackups folder in Windows Explorer, I right-clicked the folder and selected the security tab. I clicked the edit button and added everyone to have full permissions to that folder. I saved my changes and I was able to delete the RRbackups folder.

Summary: Lenovo has a utility called Rescue and Recovery on their computers. This utility is to help backup your computer and recover your operating system in the event of a hard drive failure. This utility backs up to a hidden folder on Drive C called RRbackups. This hidden folder held 400GB of data. Once I removed these folders the space on the hard drive increased substanically. You can read more about this issue and resolutions on Lenovo’s forum threads.

I hope this helps someone. Please leave a comment if this helped. If you need additional help feel free to post a question.

This was posted by techspeeder.