Hard Drive nearly full?

[countrykid]

Hi, Hope someone can help - I'm not that savvy with PCs. Sorry this question is so long! My Toshiba Laptop runs Vista Home Premium (32 bit), and has 2Gb RAM. I keep getting a message that the CPU is close to capacity.
I have clicked on "Computer" to check the status of the Drives - which shows as follows: Vista (C) Capacity 79,853,252,608 Bytes - 74.3GB, Used Space 76,499,755,008 - 71.2Gb, Free Space 3,353,497,600 - 3.12. Compress This Drive option is unchecked, Index this drive option is checked. I have clicked on the Disk clean up option, which gave me a tiny bit of space back. What might be taking up so much of the capacity?
There is also a Drive shown as Data (E) Used space 5,754,515,456 - 5.35Gb, Free Space 72,858,271,744 - 67.8Gb, Capacity 78,612,787. I have no idea what is stored on this drive, but is seems to have loads of unused space going to waste, which I could do with on my C Drive instead.
I do have my CDs stored in Windows Media Player - which shows as Size 949 bytes (doesn't sound like much/enough, Size on Disk 4.00Kb. Since getting an Apple i-pod, I also have my music saved there too, and this shows as Size 1.69Kb, Size on disk 4.00kb. When in I-Tunes it displays as 108 Albums, 7.16Gb. I have quite a few Photos stored in My Pictures (no Videos), the info in Properties shows as Size 10.Gb, Size on Disk 10Gb. Many thanks if you have patiently read all this question!! Hope you can help.

[RATTER15]

The CPU (Central Processor Unit) is nothing to do with your hard drive.

It sounds like you have stuff running in the back ground that is using your processor.

You will soon get better advice than I can give you on here, look out for Albags and Chuckfickens, they will guide you better than me.

[countrykid]

Thanks for clarifying re CPU. Appreciated.

[RAV1D]

The CPU is like the brain of you computer and It sorts out all the information and over the time you have had your computer you will have been on many websites and put different programs on your computer that will often do updates and be running other small programs that help the main program their linked with. So when your computer is turned on these programs will all start up doing their thing they do in the background as not all that is happening on a computer will be shown to you on the screen. You will have not just the program you load yourself but all these using the CPU part of the computer at once and The CPU can only do so much jobs at once. You can stop these so called background programs running by going to your start menu and then on the search bar type msconfig and then press enter and a small box will come up on your screen. you can then go on the start up menu at the top of the box and a list of programs will show up with boxes next to them and ticks. you can untick some of them. You will notice they may be ones with similar file names to programs you use. some of them are the ones that appere in the bottem right of your desktop tool bar as mini icons. You may not need all them running all the time. So when you untick them in the msconfig box they will no longer start up when you start up your computer. This should cut down on the amount of work your CPU is doing.
Your CPU is that thing you hear about all the time on computer adverts! Your Intel inside or your Pentium processor! Im sure some of the other Computer people on here will give you more advice! Good luck!

[keyplus90]

As ratters said wait for Chuckfickens and few others as I get my advice from these guys too. But from what I have read it seems like you have either partition as Data (E) drive. You should have stored your stuff (and used) that drive instead.

But as I said for more expert advice wait and don't go anywhere. There are lots of good guys (and probably dolls too) here.

[VHG]

You only have 3Gb of space left on C and that is FAR too little space for your computer to work properly. Windows itself needs disk space to store temporary files, of which it creates a lot while your computer is running.

Your E drive is called your Data for drive as that is the best drive to store your personal files on.

Move some or all of your personal files from C to E. These can be pictures, videos, mp3 music files, and any office type files.

Make sure you MOVE the files and dont COPY them

The only "problem" you may have in moving files from C to E is if the files are cataloged in something like itunes and moving the files could confuse it.

[VHG]

As well as moving files from C to E you can do the following to try to free up disk space.

Run disk clean up (sounds like already done), but do it again and select the option to "Clean up system files" as well.

Empty your recycle bin. When you delete a file it goes into your recycle bin but is still on your hard disk. Emptying the recycle bin removes the files from your hard disk.

Clean out your browser temporary files. May not free up much space, but it all helps.

Turn OFF Windows System Restore. This will delete all the old restore points (of which there may be quite a few). Then turn System Restore back on again.

Turn off Windows Hibernation if you dont use it. Frees up space.

Delete any files you no longer need, particulalry Video files as they are the largest.

If you do all the above that will free up disk space.

[AlBags]

Back off System Restore to around 10%

Your files sizes stated seem tiny. Are you sure you didn't mean Gb? (not Kb)

[AlBags]

For home use, you do not need Indexing for single HDD of that size.
Turn it off and include all sub-folders. Some may need to be skipped, so sit by it when you change it. PC will be a little more responsive.

Use Windows Explorer to browse into your E drive to see what's on there. This may be a partition or a separate drive .. depending on what is shown in Disc Management from Control Panel/Administrative tools.

R Click on My Documents and Properties .. How big is it?
You can move My Docs to the E drive/partition .. it will be an invisible move (everything will work the same, incl My Docs links, saving files, etc.

To move My Docs, R Click and select Properties/Move. Select E and transfer ALL files/folders there. Things will work the same when done, but you should make a load of space on C.

Then defrag the lot.

[countrykid]

Sorry not responded until now. Have been out all day. Many thanks to all for your advice and things to try. I'll take a closer look tomorrow and try what Albags has suggested.
Thanks again