Free Space On Hard Drive...

[has]

Please excuse my ignorance, but I need some very simple advice (not very PC literate!!).
Laptop is running slow. I have tried to 'compress' disc drive, which has created a bit more space, but even so, it is very full.
I don't know how to access the bits I need to delete, or even how to do it really. (I do have an external hard drive, so perhap stuff can be moved from C: Drive to external drive?).
When I double click on the C: Drive, a list of only 8 items appears & 6 out of 8 of those have a 'date modified' of 2008.

Hope someone can advise.

Many thanks :-)

[joko]

yes you can move any of your files and pics etc to the ext drive, and then delete them off the c drive - though unless you have thousands it wont be that much space.
do you have a lot of movies on there?

[ST24]

You don't mention which OS you are using. If it's Windows you can go to the Control Panel and find a list called Programs. Use that to uninstall any programs you no longer want.
To make more space you can use find/search to discover where your images and other suitable files are. You can transfer them to an external drive or upload them to an online cloud drive like Google drive. Then you can delete them from the C: drive.
After you do that you should run the Windows defrag program then you'll be able to see how much free space you really have.

[Old_Geezer]

One does not usually compress a drive in order to gain speed. Sure it creates space on the disk, but any data read has to be decompressed again before it can be used. It is questionable whether the faster read compensates for the additional time taken to perforn that decompression. If you beleive lack of disk space is the reason for the lack of speed, then delete or back off stuff you don't use, as you have considered, or buy/install a larger drive.

Without knowing the drive and being there to see I think it an impossible task to say exactly what can go, but try something like CCleaner to clear out comon culprits. Be aware it's default settings does mean you can lose things like history and cookies though.

You are sure the drive space really is the issue ?