hard drive space

[sprayermick]

I downloaded (legally from a paid for site) a few movies recently and stored them in a folder "My Films" I later burnt them to DVD discs and then deleted them from the folder and the recycle bin, yesterday I clicked on "My Computer" and noticed that the amount of free space on the hard drive had been reduced quite a lot, as the films are the only things I have downloaded recently I cant think of anything else that would use up hard drive space, I have done a "search" for the movies but came up with nothing so is there anywhere else on the computer that they might be, I am running Win.XP by the way

[TTG]

Search for all files using the name of *.* and file size greater than 300mb (300000k). You might find other things you do not need. Sometimes dvd burning software creates a temporary image. The image might still be on your computer.

[bibblebub]

use a disk cleaner such a CCleaner, there could be temporary files left over

[VHG]

Windows creates all sorts of temporry files, some of them quite large.

The System Restore feature in Windows can create a large file, and can use up to 15% of your disk space.

Maybe there were some old System Restore files that Windows deleted for example.

Windows also has a large hidden file called the pagefile that shrinks and grows as Windows needs it, maybe that was smaller than usual.

Remember there are all sorts of things going on behind the scenes with Windows that most of us dont know about so just because YOU did not delete some files does not mean it did not take place.

[sprayermick]

Thanks to everybody for your answers!