Windows XP: What’s eating up my hard drive space?
- 1/9/09 3:15 PM
Adaware spyware program
by gardener60 - 12/27/08 3:02 AM In reply to: Try This. by MadDog843Surely this program is not still being used.It has long been suspect in causing more problems than it apparently solves and I abandoned it in favour of spybot which reports each change to the registry.Ill check on the files it creates as you suggest.
Hibernation ,virus attacks , using shredder
by arunmudaliar - 12/26/08 10:54 PM In reply to: What’s eating up my hard drive space? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
If you hibernating your system it will take the memory size of your ram. For ex: if your ram size is 1.5 gb if you are hibernating your system 1.5 gb hard disk space is occupied . You can free the hard disk space using "Disk cleanup".
Next to that i have to say if you are using any options like "erase deleted data" , "shred free disk space" from shredder softwares the particular drive size is reduced. But when the process is over,the actual free size is available .
If the above were not the cause then i think your os is corrupted & contains a lot of viruses & other malicious programs
(NT) try tune up utilities, this should do the job.
by rdh9 - 12/27/08 5:16 PM In reply to: What’s eating up my hard drive space? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
What's eating up my hard drive space?
by shahidan3 - 12/27/08 5:57 PM In reply to: What’s eating up my hard drive space? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
1.If you have a thumb drive transfer some of the big files to it. Flash drives are very cheap now (Malaysian currency: MR25 to MR30 for 2gig capacity i.e less than US$10 ). Also delete all those files that are not too important to you. Than perform scandisk before you defrag.
2.If you have been using free programs to detect and remove malware or viruses they were mostly ineffective.I have discarded all my other virus scanners and removers in favor of "Bitdefender"
3.Most probably your C drive is infected by trojans or other malwares which embedded themselves in the root file.When you run Windows you will not be able to remove them. Try using "Puppy linux" which is free and very easy to use. Get version 4.0 as this version mounts the drive automatically as you point and click it. After installation open C drive. Click the eye icon in the menu bar so that you can view the hidden files.Click on System Volume and delete all restore points.You may see items like "resycle.com" or "autorun.inf" before opening System volume.Remove them. You might see many suspicious items on C but be careful not to delete genuine Windows items .
I found this method very easy and effective in removing all the infections.
The most effective solution of course is reformatting the drive. I am just suggesting !
I hope this is helpful to you and others.
ASM
this will slove
by keninomaha - 12/30/08 8:47 PM In reply to: What’s eating up my hard drive space? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
first open c drive properties then go to diskcleanup and clean the temp filesand then and go to moreoptions and clean system restore or other wise use glary utiltes and smart defragment
Hard drive space
by Tusi Rao - 1/2/09 4:49 AM In reply to: What’s eating up my hard drive space? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Perform a check disk.
Type the following in command prompt(START > All Programs > Accessories > Command Prompt):
chkdsh /r
Note: When asked , type Y for yes to start checkdisk after system restarts.
Cleaning up a hard drive
by bonafide49 - 1/5/09 11:14 AM In reply to: What’s eating up my hard drive space? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I just worked on one with this problem this morning. Windows likes to backup everything it does, touches or thinks it may at sometime touch. Many of these things can be deleted. It's sort of a last ditch effort to keep the machine running. But there are other options too.
1) Get Partition magic or some similar program and use that to shrink the D: drive size and expand the C: partition size. I would recommend trying this on a test machine first so you don't have to worry about screwing up a good one. Even an old hard spare drive setup with a C and D partition (partition sizes don't matter and can be empty) would be a good test bed. Once installed, Partition Magic allows you to create a boot floppy disk. Create it if you have a floppy drive.
2)Clone the C drive to a new hard disk with Norton Ghost, Acronis True Image or another one of many out there. The advantage is that it gives you a new hard drive with a clone of your old machine so everything looks, feels and works the same. I believe some new hard drives come with an application on the new drive which will do exactly this process for free. Read the box or ask a sales person about this if you're not sure. Old machines may be limited on how big the C drive can be because of the BIOS so don't get a 1 Gig drive and expect it to all be a C drive. You will probably have to make it something around 120 Gig or so and later create a D drive for the balance.
or 3) The old fashioned way by deleting junk files.
Check the following locations for junk files. Generally they can all be safely deleted but do one step at a time and do a reboot between each, just in case. You may not have some of these locations on your C drive. Be sure that you have set Windows Explorer to be able to see all hidden and system files (Tools, Folder Options, View, check Show Hidden Files and Folders and Uncheck both Hide settings). Should you have trouble booting back up, do so in Safe Mode by Hitting F8 repeatedly before Windows starts. Usually that will correct any issues created from file deletions.
C:\Temp delete everything found in here
C:\Windows\temp delete everything found in here
C:\Windows will display directories (in blue font)that are
Windows Updates backups used to uninstall a Windows Update
You can delete them all (only the blue
font directories) and their same name associated
log files further down in the Windows directory.
C:\Documents and Settings\YourProfileName\Local Settings\Temp
These are usually all backup files from programs you
run such as Word etc. Delete them all.
Open Internet Explorer and click on Internet Options. Click on the Advanced tab, then scroll to the bottom and make sure Empty Temporary internet Files is checked. Close Internet Explorer and the temp files will be deleted. They are not needed and take a lot of space.
Lastly, run Windows Disk Cleanup program (Start, Programs, Accessories, System Tools, Disk Cleanup). It will probably find some additional junk that can be safely deleted. The Compress Old Files option will probably be checked. It can be left checked if you don't mind it taking a little while to compress old stuff. It shouldn't really cause any significant slow downs when running programs as it only compresses seldom used files.
As I said, this is a last ditch effort. More often than not, nothing will be affected but I have had one PC that wouldn't reboot after the cleanup but it did come back after booting up once in Safe Mode. Good Luck and I hope this helps.
Have you turned off Indexing?
by hbartholomewjr - 1/6/09 6:54 PM In reply to: What’s eating up my hard drive space? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
In addition to the other suggestions here please consider that Windows indexing will eat some space. I did not see where you checked on that. Go to My Computer. Right click on the C: drive, or the D: drive, click on properties. On the General tab remove the check from Allow Indexing...
I did this when cleaning up space. If you have a C: and a D: partition, are you using D: for documents? If so, no real reason to index C: I find not really a reason to run indexing on my laptop at all.
Good Luck,
Harold
To freeup ur hdd space
by omyadav - 1/7/09 1:26 AM In reply to: What’s eating up my hard drive space? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
boot ur pc from dos, in c drive u get system volume information folder delete these folder from the c drive, u will get ur c drive space free.
Can you explain:
by Kees Bakker - 1/7/09 1:28 AM
In reply to: To freeup ur hdd space by omyadav
"boot from dos". How do you do that?
A much safer and easier way, in my opinion, is to disable System Restore in XP itself. And better enable it again immediately.
Kees
FKC Windows XP!!
by cafe2013 - 4/11/09 1:20 PM In reply to: To freeup ur hdd space by omyadavFound out with all you guys hints with SEQUOIAVIEW that the following directory C:\WINDOWS\INSTALLER\ had almost 10GB in it!!! Yes 10GB all these years that I've been using the machine without re-installing windows (5YEARS) all the programs I installed or the updates from windows it had been making a copy of it and stacking them there besides the other 5GB from Windows Updates I was abble to DELETE EVERYTHING!!! My SYSTEM is still running and obviously now better than aver with almost 15gb less fat!! Thanks to all you guys hope this will help someone.
im pretty sure its a virus
by marekera - 1/8/09 11:13 PM In reply to: What’s eating up my hard drive space? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
there are viruses that usually replicates themselves whenever you do your task with you computer.so if you said that you ran an Antiviral Software and the Problem is still occuring,it might be possible that you need to update you antivirus software and all the other softwares that you use to protect your computer
if that does not work maybe you will have to format the hard drive,if you have back up of your most important information
it's the dire default settings!
by later1210 - 1/9/09 10:18 AM In reply to: What’s eating up my hard drive space? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
i am sorry to see another rubbish software victim!
it's absolutely when u install some program,the hateful default settings have aimed at your C disk(the system disk).
it's too late 4 u to take any skin-deep actions.
for the fisrt very place,you should back up your essential date(photos , musics ..)
Secondly, reinstall(maybe a blunder) your system!
it is estimated that XP only take up 5GB around space.
at last.remember that when you install any program. just pay attention to any details that link to your poor C disk.
Default Settings
by msgale - 1/9/09 2:34 PM In reply to: it's the dire default settings! by later1210I just had a long talk with my "C" drive, and it told me that it was very happy, it has 300 GBytes of space, half empty. Unless I have another physical disk I never have "D", "E", or "F" drive. Many thing must be on the boot drive, theis is the way things are, live with it.
How to VERY easily see what's taking up space
by raynathompson - 1/9/09 8:23 PM In reply to: What’s eating up my hard drive space? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
You can get a visual of exactly what is on your hard drive by using SequoiaView by the University of Technology Eindhoven (Netherlands). It is a treemap program that I find indispensable.
http://w3.win.tue.nl/nl/onderzoek/onderzoek_informatica/visualization/sequoiaview//
If the above URL doesn't work, simply google SequoiaView (one word) and you'll probably find it right at the top.
Once you can see what is taking up space, it is a cinch to correct the problem.
By the way, the software is fairly small, you should still be able to install it. If not, try saving some music and plain documents to cd-rom, then delete them for space on your drive. You can put them back later after your drive is cleaned up. (I did that once years ago when I had the same problem.)
The earlier suggestion about getting another hard drive is a good one, but if you have a desktop computer don't think you must replace the one you have and "restore" everything including your OS. Just install the new drive as a secondary "slave". You'll gain tons of space and can move some of your data over to free up space on your OS drive. If you get one big enough, you can make your backup images of your main drive to the second one and save yourself some worry about the old drive failing one day. (You'd install a new main drive, then restore it from the image on the backup/second drive.) Just a suggestion from the voice of experience on that! 
| Forum legend: | |
 |
Locked thread |
 |
Moderator |
 |
CNET staff |
 |
Samsung staff |
 |
Norton Authorized Support team |
 |
AVG staff |
 |
Windows Outreach team |
 |
Dell staff |
 |
Intel staff |
