Laptop Clean Up - Hard Drive Full!

[unreal83]

Hi guys.

 

I imagine my request is a straight forward one, but I have no clue how to do it.

 

My hard drive is totally full. I need to clean it up - but nothing seems to work - in 'my computer' the different hard drives - C Drive which has 139 GB full and the D drive (called presario?) has 9.39GB and is totally empty. Dunno what that one is?

 

Anyway, have tried defragmenting the disk, deleting offline web pages - all the things the computer help programs suggest and still nothing is free'd up, i have even moved all of my videos to an external hard drive which took up a lot of space but still, its full.

 

Anything else you can suggest to clear some crap off of my laptop? Had it for 3 years nearly now, cant say im savvy in looking after the actual thing - so need help please!

 

Thanks.

[Plastic Nev]

Hi, and welcome to Extreme Tech Support - Free PC Help.

Lets see what we can do for you here then.

 

First you say you transferred all video to an external hard drive, sounds silly, but that may only have copied them over and left the originals still on your "C" drive, did you look for and delete them?

 

If so, have you also emptied the recycle bin? Until that is emptied all files in it are still accounted for on the drive.

 

I would have thought moving the video's would have made the biggest improvement, but if they haven't been moved and only copied, that will be your biggest reason for the drive to still look full.

 

The extra "D" drive, I assume it is an extra partition on the main hard drive, some manufacturers are now doing this, it is then up to you to use that as maybe a backup in case "C" becomes corrupted. Or it can still be used for ordinary files, just remember they are there, and finally, the "D" partition can be removed or at least shrunk in size, therefore giving more room on "C".

 

Let us know what you find regarding those video files and whether they are indeed deleted or hiding somewhere.

Nev.

[unreal83]

Thank you for your reply.

 

No, no videos - i have had a look at my 'videos' folder and there are a few blackberry quick time videos that amount to about 600mb! Hardly much is it.

 

I have alot of photos - about 80 albums, I would rather delete other stuff on the comp than the photos i need them on there.

 

Is there any way of doing something to have a look at what exactly is taking up the most space on my disk?

 

Disk clean up does nothing.....says it will free up 5.7mb of space?!

[Plastic Nev]

Well, considering you have a large chunk of space on that "D" partition, if reluctant to move the photo's to the external, you could move them to "D". What is the total size of "D"?

If it is the same size as what is showing on it, then that is most likely your recovery partition in which case files on it will be hidden.

The way to find out how much space is used, right click on each major folder, then click "Properties" that should show you the total files in MB or even GB in each folder. Just add them all up, it should then tally with what it tells you in the "C" drive total.

 

Nev.

[Plastic Nev]

Just to add, have you looked in the recycle bin and made sure that is empty?

Until it is emptied it will still show up as used space.

 

Nev.

[KenB]

Hi,

 

If I can butt in ??

 

You say that you have a partition - 9.39GB and is totally empty.

 

 

You could extend the 139GB into the 9.39GB partition ( easily ). making a 148GB space on C:\

 

Check the following for me:

Start ....type in .....diskmgmt.msc .....ENTER

Your drive will be shown as Disk 0 ( probably ) and the 2 partitions will be obvious.

 

Right click on the shaded 139GB C:\

 

It should look something like this:

http://i403.photobucket.com/albums/pp118/kenbrabin/Diskmgmt.jpg

The first block is my recovery partition. This cannot be touched.

If you have a third block ( D:\ ?? ) with no data on it - we may be able to incorporate this into the C:\ partition.

 

Is "extend Volume" an option and not greyed out when you right click on the C:\ partition?

[unreal83]

Hi there

 

Firstly thank you for all your replies - it really means a lot that you're all so helpful. Sorry its taken me a couple of days to get back to you, the joys of a 14 month old means i couldnt get back to this issue sooner!

 

Ok, so the prompt of IOS5 has also highlighted this problem to me as it wont transfer the data from our iphones/ipad to the computer first to backup etc as there is not enough room - so something definitely has to be done!

 

Ok so i took your advice and went into the C drive and right clicked on each folder - turns out that 85gb of the space is being used from the 'user' folder and is mainly coming from my music, photos etc.

 

I have gone through and managed to now free up 23gb space.

 

Apple Applications have a ipa file saved in music/itunes/mobile applications and they all add up to 9gb. Will have to go through and delete some of these as thats a ridiculous amount of space and probably most of them arent used. What is an ipa file?

 

I have emptied the recycle bin.

 

I have actually filled the D drive with photos which free'd up more space, I think maybe i need to put some of these folders on an external hard drive - just frightens the life out of me that something might happen to it/lose it/goes corrupt - photos are irreplacable!

 

KenB - went into that - 'extend storage' is greyed out im afraid. Whats the next step?

 

Sorewinner I will try that next thank you.

 

Thanks again everyone.

[unreal83]

Sorewinner i have just downloaded that freeware - very very useful!

 

I would try and paste a screen shot but erm.....i dont know how - my laptop has a button above the number pad which is the 'home' button and it has 'prt sc' underneath it - anyone know how to use the function on this button? Never knew how.

 

The reason i want to show you is because there is a path to some backup files under my user account, there is a folder called AppData then the path is Roaming/Apple Computer/MobileSync/Backup and then there are 5 different folders which about to 9.5gb and the names of the folders are long codes.

 

Does anyone know if these are needed?

[KenB]

KenB - went into that - 'extend storage' is greyed out im afraid. Whats the next step?

 

I thought it may be.

 

If you are ABSOLUTELY SURE that there is nothing on this drive that you want ......

AND

It is positioned to the right of C:\ ( see my picture last post )

 

You can do the following:

 

Go back to Disk Management

Right click on the drive and select "Delete Volume"

You may get a message that the drive is in use - Continue.

It will not take long to Delete the Volume.

 

Next...

Right click on C:\

You will get the option now to "Extend Volume" .....click on this.

The Wizard will pop-up

You will be told "The Maximum Available Space"

Select the amount of space and type in what it says is the maximum ( could be 99950 or similar )

DO NOT type in a figure greater than the maximum.

 

That's it.

 

You have incorporated D:\ Drive into the C:\ Drive.

 

Please make sure:

That there is no data at all on D:\

It is to the RIGHT of C:\ in Disk Management.

 

Check and then check again before you make the changes.

 

If you are unsure of any of the above please ask.