PC (Laptop) help

BigJimmyB

Hi all,

I have an Acer aspire laptop with a C: and drive (both 30gb).

I know by today's standard the HDD's are small, but even so, the C: drive is 500Mb of being full and I can't see why.

Looking at 'Properties' for folders like 'Program Files' and 'My Documents', there is nowhere near 30Gb used, hence my frustration.

I have no 'big' apps on it (MS Office and iTunes are the biggest) and have deleted all the games etc which came with it to give me more space, but there is clearly not enough memory left.

I use the drive to temporarily store downloads, but wonder if this could be used more effectively to free up space on C:?

Thanks in advance, I'm hoping not to have purchase a new machine just yet, we're still recovering from Christmas!

BJB

aidso

http://foldersize.sourceforge.net/about.html

Download this, install it and activate by right clicking at the top of the list and turning on the Folder Size. You should be able to at least track down the folder with all your data in it.
In addition to that run the disk cleanup tool:
Start > Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Disk Cleanup
and delete all your temp internet files, cached data and temp installation files.

A.

Anonymous

Hmm. Could be the recycle bin, crashdumps, temp files, and stuff like that.
Do you actually need two hard disk partitions?

Try running the disk cleanup utility and see what it will let you get rid of.

mossmotorsport

Personally I recommend a program called CC Cleaner. This will also help to clear out any temporary files, and remove any browser history or cached files. The drive could also be really badly fragmented, so try and run defrag too (this should not affect the amount of free space by much though).

BigJimmyB

I'm religious about keeping it clean so run CC Cleaner, disk cleanup etc very regularly.

A defrag won't work as you need 15% free for it function properly!

I'll install foldersize and report back.

Yeehah, could I un-partition the drive without losing anything (think I already know the answer...)?

aidso

Nah it would over-write one of your partitions.

Anonymous

BigJimmyB wrote:

I'm religious about keeping it clean so run CC Cleaner, disk cleanup etc very regularly.

A defrag won't work as you need 15% free for it function properly!

I'll install foldersize and report back.

Yeehah, could I un-partition the drive without losing anything (think I already know the answer...)?

Depends which OS.
If they're "dynamic volumes" in Vista or 7, then yes, you can add them both together, but you'd need to back up whatever's on the drive first, then stick it back.
In XP? Hmm, can't remember.

redvee

mossmotorsport wrote:

Personally I recommend a program called CC Cleaner

+1, run it every 2 months to clear up the cr@p on the PC. Quite surprising how much it cleans up that you don't know you could delete.

BigJimmyB

Yeehah i'm on Vista. Anywhere I can search this info out?

Anonymous

Ok. Should go something like this. Back up everything on the drive before you start.
(I accept no responsibility since this is all from the top of my head)

open the start menu, right click on "computer", and choose "Manage"
This should open up the computer management screen.
On the left hand pane of the computer management window, click on "disk management"
After a short wait, you should see in the right hand pane, a list of Volumes at the top, and disks in the bottom.
In the bottom list, you should see that drive C: and are both on Disk0.
Right click the d: section of Disk0 and hit "delete volume"
Once that's done, I think you can right click on C: and chose something like "extend volume", which then lets you choose the empty space you created by getting rid of to add to C:

There may be caveats such as needing a certain amount of empty space on the disk, but it's been so long since i did this that i honestly don't remember clearly. But tha't pretty much the gist of it.

bartimaeus

Try Sequioaview which gives you a colour coded visual representation (big squarified treemap) of your space usage, which you can then 'explore'... so you can see just how much space is used by 'hiberfile' or your recycle bin - or in my case the Google Desktop search indexing.

Anonymous

Bartimaeus wrote:

Try Sequioaview which gives you a colour coded visual representation (big squarified treemap) of your space usage, which you can then 'explore'... so you can see just how much space is used by 'hiberfile' or your recycle bin - or in my case the Google Desktop search indexing.

Hiberfil.sys will be the same size as your RAM. If you delete it you lose the ability to hibernate your machine until you recreate it.
Google desktop search is a complete and utter pile of waste of time wank. Same with the fricking google toolbar.

bartimaeus

SequoiaView...

Anonymous

Erm, what does the sequoiaview display actually mean?

bartimaeus

yeehaamcgee wrote:

Erm, what does the sequoiaview display actually mean?

Each square is a file, with its area being its size. The display shows the files are organised by directory and sub-directory, so you can drill down. And you can colour code the display to show file type (so all your music could be green, and your photos blue for example). The very large grey area is free space as the pic is the top level view.

Basically you can see how much space you are using and what you are using it for... which is what the OP was asking about.

Try it.

jklash1987

yeehaamcgee wrote:

Ok. Should go something like this. Back up everything on the drive before you start.
(I accept no responsibility since this is all from the top of my head)

open the start menu, right click on "computer", and choose "Manage"
This should open up the computer management screen.
On the left hand pane of the computer management window, click on "disk management"
After a short wait, you should see in the right hand pane, a list of Volumes at the top, and disks in the bottom.
In the bottom list, you should see that drive C: and are both on Disk0.
Right click the d: section of Disk0 and hit "delete volume"
Once that's done, I think you can right click on C: and chose something like "extend volume", which then lets you choose the empty space you created by getting rid of to add to C:

There may be caveats such as needing a certain amount of empty space on the disk, but it's been so long since i did this that i honestly don't remember clearly. But tha't pretty much the gist of it.

He would have to fromat the drive as one partition.

aidso

Yeah please do not do what he suggested. Dragging the partition line just formats the straight drive thus losing the info. I'd say do a full rebuild or keep as is. I normally have my OS and program files on one partition and all my downloads in a separate

Anonymous

jklash1987 wrote:

He would have to fromat the drive as one partition.

Erm, no. :roll:

aidso wrote:

Dragging the partition line just formats the straight drive thus losing the info.

Again, wrong.
Extending a partition is not deleting it. Although obviously you would have to lose the drive.
Also, I have no idea where the hell you get the "dragging the partition line" from.

BigJimmyB

Right - fcuk it, I'm gonna try yeehah's suggestion.

All my data will be safe, so it's worth a punt.

If it fails, I'll trash the machine and rebuild it.

I'll use some of those tools perhaps to analyse my data as I just can't see where 30Gb gets used on C:\

Thanks all, much appreciated.