Missing hdd space after windows reinstall

[grizzle]

If you don't change anything during the install, I believe Windows keeps the old install in a directory called Windows.old or something like that, which will eat up some HDD space.

Dustie and Jodah are right, if you want to avoid this, then when you reinstall make sure you reformat the drive (this is good because it also checks for bad sectors) and remove all partitions that had been there before, and create new partitions as needed.

Doing these things removes absolutely everything from prior installs and drops in a truly clean and fresh install of windows.