My computer is eternally showing a low disk space notification and no matter what I do to try and clear space a few days later it appears again. My brother has also had a go and cleared over a gig of free space only for it to disappear again.

Any advice for a relatively computer illiterate person gratefully recieved.

Have you run the disc clean up utility? [presuming XP]

Have a look in C & delete all files in the Temp folder

Have a look in C:\Program Files & delete all program folders that you don't have installed anymore

Have you run disc cleanup and defragged? You can also download C Cleaner for free which will give you a bit back.

If you're feeling brave, Start > regedit and remove any stuff related to progs you no longer have or use. Disclaimer – this can knack yer machine if you delete the wrong stuff….

Time to ditch your collection of midget/goat pron, I'm afraid.

see if you can find some software to detect duplicate files – I bet you've got lots

the OP modestly says he's 'relatively computer illiterate' – I don't think regedit is for him.

TNS, how big is your hard drive? a new drive can be very cheap to install

Oh, and find out about backing up to external disc or DVD etc – preferably before you start all this carry on

Uplink – cheers but the operating system is vista, I have looked in the Temp folder and make sure that it gets regularly emptied. I've also been through Program Files and there's a few in there that I'm unsure about but don't want to take the risk of deleting something I shouldn't.

User-removed – not sure how to run disk cleanup?? also I would have to back files up to de-frag wouldn't I?

CF- the midget and goat videos are saved to the D drive

Bassspine – its an 80gb laptop but the amount of space active on the C drive is ~32.5gb.

I do have an external drive that my father bought me but with regards to defragging and backing things up I wouldn't have foggiest. I was wondering if there would be any folders where files might get stored that I can delete.

Thanks for the help so far guys 🙂

Try something like WinDirStat or JDiskReport to track down the problem first.

http://windirstat.info/ – http://windirstat.info/wds_current_setup.exe

http://www.snapfiles.com/opinions/JDiskReport/JDiskReport.html

Makes deleting stuff easier too.

I take it you have the HDD partitioned? C: & D?

Why not rearrange the partition sizes to suit?

I had a problem with vista on a lap top once too, apparently it keeps backing its self up. Can't remember how I solved it, switched to XP I think. Try goggling vista and disappearing HD space.

I've just done all this and managed to go from 4% remaining space to 20%, but did have to take off alot of photos to backup external hard drive. Only had a 40gd HD to start with !

I take it you have the HDD partitioned? C: & D?

Yes I do but I have a lot of music saved as well as academic files so there is vastly limited space on there too. I suppose I could move the contents to the external drive and then repartion the drives? Not sure how I would do this though 😕 ? The repartioning that is

Sorry bit of a computer numptie 🙂

is it one of those machines set-up to have a complete image of the operating system on nearly half of the drive? So it can do a system restore off F10 or something similar? lots of the big shops do this

To defrag / cleanup 'C', go to Start > All programs > Accessories > System Tools > Disc Cleanup or Defragmenter – I'd do both if I were you.

I'm also running Vista and you'll need to be a bit patient when running either of these – it can take up to a couple of hours, especially if it's never been done before. I run them both every couple of months.

You don't need to back up but if you're worried you can go to System Restore (in the same place as the other two) and create a restore point, in case it all goes boobs-up. This will, however, take up a wee bit of memory…

Good luck!

Download CCleaner http://www.ccleaner.com/ and do a clean up (use default settings if you're less comfortable playing with other stuff).

I also have a link to a techie's blog that has tips on how to free up space. I twittered it recently but just need to find it and post here.

SM

download and run 'spacemonger' (or similar) to show you where all the space is going…
you can probably reduce the amount of space allowed for system restore points….have a google and you'll find instrutions like this

other options…if one of your shut down options is 'hibernate' then you may have large hibernate files…you can remove the hibernate option and delete the existing hibernate file…google example…think I disabled it via the disk cleanup option (run disk cleanup for sure)

also possible to reduce or remove your pagefile…some people say this will result in system crashes ..others have run with no page file for ages (supposedly)…again have a google around but example

Stick Ubuntu instead, has worked for me.

user-removed – Member
To defrag / cleanup 'C', go to Start > All programs > Accessories > System Tools > Disc Cleanup or Defragmenter – I'd do both if I were you.

I've just done the disk cleanup and cleared +2gb off the C drive. Cheers 😀

Thanks guys for now i'll stick with the disk cleanup and have a read up on the other advice that has been posted on here which will hopefully enable to free up even more space when I have a bit more of a clue about what I am doing.

Many thanks TNS 😀

Nae bother – happy to help! Defrag will also save you a load of space – worth trying. And despite taking up a bit of space on your hard drive (not much!), CCleaner (spacemonkey's link )really is worth having – and it's free!

Even better, spend about £20 and get registry mechanic. It says it's free, but will make you pay to actually clear up all the problems it finds – brilliant prog – comes highly recommended. I have it on both my machines and it always finds loads of stuff that wants fixing.

My computer is eternally showing a low disk space notification and no matter what I do to try and clear space a few days later it appears again. My brother has also had a go and cleared over a gig of free space only for it to disappear again.

Bassspine – its an 80gb laptop but the amount of space active on the C drive is ~32.5gb.

Not sure quite what this means in relation to the above.

In addition to C:\Temp, have you checked for variations like C:\Tmp and C:\Windows\Temp?

Also look in the C:\Windows folder for any other folders called $NtUninstall. These are (in theory) there to roll-back any Windows Updates, but you'll likely have loads of them dating back quite a while. If you're happy with the way your system is running some of these can be deleted.

You might want to have a look at Treesize from http://www.jam-software.com to see where your disk space is currently allocated,