Hard Disc Nearly Full

[Jike1]

Hi, My hard disc is nearly full (80GB) I've deleted loads of stuff (recycle bin empty). i can only account for approx 20GB of ued memory. Anybody any idea where the rest of the stuff taking up my memory is hiding?

[Buenchico]

Er, you have defragged your drive recently, haven't you? Instructions for XP are here:
http://www.zianet.com/msaxton/tkgypsy/degrag/d efrag-xp.html

Then run a search for *.*
(That finds every file on your drive).
Click on the 'size' header until the files are organised in descending order of size.
Then see what's near the top of the list. You might find that there's some sort of temporary file (or folder) which has been gradually growing in size but is completely unnecessary.

Chris

[Jike1]

Thanks chris i should have mentioned I've got Vista. Will that link still work?

[Buenchico]

Hmmm.

As usual, Microsoft have made a simple task harder when they've 'upgraded' Windows. Theoretically, you shouldn't need to defrag your drive with Vista, because the default setting mean that it should happen 'in the background' automatically. (It's meant to happen at 0100 every Wednesday, or when you next turn your PC on after that time). However, there are plenty of web references that suggest that many users don't like the way it works. To do a manual defrag you now need to get into some 'techie' stuff. See here:
http://itsfood.wordpress.com/2008/01/30/tech-h ow-to-defrag-in-windows-vista/

However, I must admit that it would be hard for a drive that hasn't been defragged properly to 'lose' the better part of 60GB. If the 'techie' stuff looks a bit too daunting, I'd forget about it for now. It's probably far more important to run that search for *.* to try to see exactly what is taking up all that space.

Chris

[Ethel]

Is system restore limited on Vista as it is on XP? System Restore could easily account for 12% - nearly 10gb

[ACtheTROLL]

the overhead for NTFS + windows is 20% free space - so you are at that point

if you've done all the upgrades

go to control panel | programs and remove the sp1 remove option

then make sure you are displaying system files .... look in c:\windows

delete the $NtUninstallKB938464$ type files (they'll be coloured blue)

DO NOT DELETE $hf_mig$

download and install ccleaner
http://www.ccleaner.com/download
run it with the default settings (knock cookies off the list if you bank)
(ccleaner will do the above ... but I like to do it myself

then check your disc for errors and finally - defrag

after that - if no big improvement ... you'll have to archive your data and/or remove some progs

[fo3nix]

I find this free tool useful:

http://windirstat.info/

(It works with Vista just fine.)

Basically, it scans your drive and shows you in picture form where all your space has gone. If you have a load of photos that are taking up too much room, it'll show you. (The screenshots on that website will help, but it's very easy to use.)

[kaw69]

Hi
Vista normally sets you up with 2 partitions within the same hard drive 1 will be quite small for Vista and some programs and the larger part will be for data eg photo`s video`s etc. normally everything you save goes to the c: partition but you can copy all your extra stuff to d: the second partition. To see if your hard drive has 2 partitions click on Start , go to Computer and it shows you all your drives and if you have 2 disks and 1 is Data copy all your extra`s to this drive. Need help to copy things over then please ask.