Hard Disk Space

[Matamata]

I have only 20% space left on my hard disk of my laptop, and have used the disk clean up tool etc. Does anyone have any other suggestions as to how I can recover more space.

[vehelpfulguy]

Well it depends what you use the disk for and what type of files are on it.

If your disk contains a lot of downloaded files such as mp3 files, digital pictures, or video files then the obvious thing to do is to back these files up to CD or DVD and then delete them from your hard disk.

Video files are usually very large so if you have any of these then either back them up and delete, or delete them if you no longer need them.

Of course you can also backup and delete other personal files you may have created to make space.

The Windows "Start" menu has an option called "Search". Go in there and select "Files and Folders". Within there you can search for files on your hard disk by SIZE.

Search your hard disk for the largest files on the hard disk and if they are personal files maybe you can back them up and delete them.

If they are Windows files, or you dont know what the file is, DONT delete them as it may stop Windows working. Only delete PERSONAL files.

[vehelpfulguy]

Some versions of Windows (XP and Vista only I think) regularly save "Restore Points" so you can go back to an earlier version of Windows if you get a virus or whatever.

By default Windows saves a LOT of your hard disk for these restore files, on mine it is 12% of my hard disk.

To reduce this, go into your menu and find "Sysyem Tools" then find "System Restore" and open it.

There is an option called "System Restore Settings". You can reduce the percentage by perhaps half and Windows will not save so many restore points.

This should free up some space (may need to reboot first)

[rojash]

20% is a somewhat meaningless figure. On a 500 G drive it would represent 100 G, which is more than some machines have in total.

[Mattk]

20% is fine! dont know what you are worrying about.
i think you need to keep it above 15% to allow defrags etc etc.

as said above, 20% has no meaning without advising the hdd size.now how long was that piece of string!