Making space on PC hard drive

[paulm]

Have been clearing some old junk and redundant programmes off the computer hard drive to try and put off the day I need to replace or upgrade.

Already have all the pictures and music files stored on external drives so the C drive, which is an old 75gb drive just has applications and a bit of data mainly.

There are a couple of things that take up a lot of space though that I am not sure if they are needed once they have been downloaded and run initially. They take up around 200mb each so would be great to get rid of them if I can, but if they are needed and in use then obviously don't want to mess anything up !

In the Add/delete programs thing they are called

Microsoft.NET Framework 2 Service Pack 2 and the same but Framework 3

Any knowledgable folk out there able to offer advice ?

Have tidied up temp files, emptied the recycling bin etc and all the usual stuff, but am down to my last gig and a bit of space !

Cheers, Paul

 

[big soft moose]

those are the service packs for windows i'd leave them alone if i were you

if you are that low on space i'd suggest swapping your hardrive for a bigger one - its easy in most computers - or possibly adding a second internal drive.

 

[Harbo]

Paul - if your PC is in a Tower then it should be quite easy to fit one in and there should be enough connectors to piggy-back it in both for power and other connections?
I've got two in mine.
Windows should recognise it and you will be able to format it and partition it if you want to?


Rod

 

[paulm]

I've held off doing anything as I assumed I would have to replace the current drive with a new bigger one and then reinstall everything onto the new one, but sounds like I am wrong in that ?

If I install a second one, how do I get it to be treated as part of the original C drive rather than a seperate drive, or does it not need to do that ?

Can you tell computers aren't really my thing !!! :lol:

Cheers, Paul

 

[Harbo]

Paul

It will just renumber it (Letters) could be D, E, F or what ever?

You can add programmes to it by choosing the new Drive when installing.
You can also add folders etc manually using My Computer.

It will still add a small amount of stuff to the C drive for operating reasons.
They used to say keep at least 10Gbs on the C drive spare for this reason.
Quite easy to copy stuff across to the new drive to keep C free?

Rod

 

[paulm]

I'm struggling to find stuff to move off the C drive to be honest Rod, all the music and pics are on a seperate external drive and so most of the C drive seems to be operating systems and installed software which I've thinned out too, still surprised there's over 70gb of it though :-k

Any idea what C:\Recycler is ? My Computer says it has the files and folders that I have deleted, but it's a system type folder with four subfolders going back to 2004 and with no visible contents and there's nearly 4gb in them it would appear. That amount of space would be a big help if I could zap the contents but no idea why it's there as I empty the recycling bin regularly.

Cheers, Paul

 

[OLD]

Windows has disc clean up its menu-accessories-systemtools-disc clean up.
it suggests files to delete i just say yes ,no problems to date.

 

[big soft moose]

Paul

It will just renumber it (Letters) could be D, E, F or what ever?

You can add programmes to it by choosing the new Drive when installing.
You can also add folders etc manually using My Computer.

It will still add a small amount of stuff to the C drive for operating reasons.
They used to say keep at least 10Gbs on the C drive spare for this reason.
Quite easy to copy stuff across to the new drive to keep C free?

Rod

personally i'd install a second larger drive - as above , then copy everything thats on the c drive across to it

then you can change the priorities to make the new drive the primary and swap out the old one for a second bigger one if you want.

 

[paulm]

That sounds easy enough Pete, is that all there is to it, just a straight copy and paste and then set the new drive to master rather than slave ?

I could probably manage that okay, didn't realise it was so easy and thought I would need to reinstall everything :lol:

Cheers, Paul

 

[mickthetree]

a standard install of XP should take up no more than about 2GB of space. Program files, profiles app data ect shouldn't be more than 10GB (approx figures) for any foreseeable reason.

You say you have 70GB? there must be more files buried away that contain data you no longer need.

Have a look through the C drive and see what folders you have. dont go randomly deleting stuff though.

Second drive is a great idea and not that hard, but I'd find whats going on on your old drive as well, that will soon fill up again and cause you system to grind to a halt as it reaches ma capacity.

All the best

 

[matt]

You could leave your current drive as the primary, complete with Windows and programs, and keep a shiny new drive just for data.

(BSM - can you really just copy the entire C drive to a new drive and then switch it to be the primary - is that really what you meant? I'd have thought Windows would have a field day but that's just my cynicism rather than any experience of copying the OS to another drive.)

 

[cambournepete]

Download a program called "ccleaner" from piriform.com

it's very good at finding old files windows no longer needs
It can also tidy your registry.

They also produce "defraggler" which is very good at defragmenting your hard drive.
I've used both a lot at work and home.

Run ccleaner to remove unwanted files (and programs if you want).
Then defrag your your hard drive with defraggler.
You might find you have quite a lot more space left.
Both programs are small - and free

 

[jlawrence]

My guess as to the answer would be system snapshots - or whatever windows calls them nowadays. It's the way that windows allows you to revert to a previous date.
I had an install of vista once which magically managed to triple it's disk usage in 2 weeks - apparently everytime it went into standby it auto took a snapshot and save it. I didn't need that install for long so I didn't bother trying to find out how to sort it.

 

[big soft moose]

(BSM - can you really just copy the entire C drive to a new drive and then switch it to be the primary - is that really what you meant? I'd have thought Windows would have a field day but that's just my cynicism rather than any experience of copying the OS to another drive.)

windows or whatever operating system would probably need to be reinstalled on the new drive - but in my experience most applications (office, photoshop, serif etc) will copy straight over. (after you reinstall windows on the new drive and swap priorities natch)

that said i might be tempted to leave the OS on the 75gb drive and just install the second as a slave for everything else.

also if the mission is to get the pc to run faster i'd probably put in a third drive - most likely a 50gb raptor or 25GB solid state- dedicated purely to scratch - and while i'd got the covers off i'd see how much extra memory i could stick in and also ensure the cooling fan is fluff free.

 

[cambournepete]

My guess as to the answer would be system snapshots - or whatever windows calls them nowadays.

"system restore points"
you can see how much space you have configured for them to use:
start->all programs->accessories->system tools->system restore.
I wouldn't expect more than 4-5GB on a 70GB hard drive if the windows default has been used...

 

[monkeybiter]

I would reccomend adding a second hard drive, they've never been as cheap as they are now, very simple to fit just make sure you set the drive to slave [instructions will be on the drive label] if you plug it into an existing ribbon cable. I wouldn't bother trying to move windows over to this drive if your not comfortable about the idea, it's definitely not as easy as cut and paste [neither is it brain surgery though] install this http://www.jam-software.com/freeware/index.shtml to identify where all your space has gone on the c: drive. any space hogging software can be uninstalled and then reinstalled on the new drive, windows should automatically give it a new letter.
if the drive isn't automatically detected then post again or pm for guidance.

 

[paulm]

Thanks for the ideas and feedback guys, will see what more I can do based on that and report back.

Many thanks, Paul

 

[wizer]

You are in for a world of trouble if you think you can just copy files from one install disc to another and it work faultlessly. I've never had that work for me in 15yrs of IT support.

If the C: drive is one partition and it's 60 odd gig, then you've got files you've missed that could be taken off. I've never really seen a windows share go over about 40gb and that's a normally for a video editor or web designer that have the full Adobe Creative Suite plus all the other standard apps.

 

[misterfish]

Any idea what C:\Recycler is ?

This is where all the files that are deleted are actually moved, in case you want them back at a later date. The easiest way to remove them is to right click on the recycle bin and select 'empty recycle bin'. These files will then be removed from the disk and the space freed up.

Another thing to consider removing are Windows Update backup files. Every time Windows installs an update it automatically backs up the old versions of the files it replaces. On an old XP laptop with a small hard disk I used http://www.tech-pro.net/windows-update-remover.html and just selected each update in turn and then clicked the 'remove backup folder' option. (Make sure the recycle bin is still empty after doing this).

Misterfish

 

[wizer]

try going to C:\Documents and Settings >right click on your profile name and click properties. This will show you the size of your profile. Mine's about a gig. It shouldn't really go over 2gig