Hard drive space

[Zincubus]

This is probably laughable to you people out there with knowledge of such things, but leaves me confused. I've recently purchased a Packard Bell IXtreme 15662 UK (if that helps).

 

It is said to have 640Gb Hard drive.

 

My C drive shows 230Gb of 291Gb free - I guess this holds all my programmes etc.

 

My D drive shows 291GB of 291GB available and is labelled DATA (D)

 

What does this mean exactly, i.e. can I use the D: drive, for what and how?

 

Secondly, the total of these drives is 582GB. meaning some 58GB is "missing" or presumably partioned with windows and recovery etc. - so where is it?

 

Can someone please explain in laymens terms what this all means?

 

Steve

 

 

Help !

 

I too have Packard Bell PC with a C drive of 291 Gb and D drive of 291 Gb

 

My PC is running very slow , struggling to do basic tasks etc

 

Done the usual virus / spyware checks etc disk defrag etc

 

I just checked the Hard drives and noticed that whilst the C drive has 213 Gb FREE the flamin' D drive has only 10 Gb free !!

 

 

THe only files in the D drive are our collection of Mp3s which total 46,7 Gb only !!

 

What on earth has happened to the other 240 plus Gb ??

 

 

 

Help !!!!!!

[Zincubus]

Update

 

The D Drive is shown in RED as it is nearly FULL !!

Just downloaded TreeSize

It shows 93 Gb as WindowsImage BackUp !!

Also 66Gb as USER PC !!

What the hell ??

Can I simply delete those two MASSIVE files ??

[Zincubus]

UPDATE

The PC World Tech Guy ran through a few things with me over the phone , altered a few settings , disc clean up , virus / spyware check, defrag hard drive etc

 

 

It's still very sluggish and random freezing on WHITE screens NOW !!

 

 

Probably have to take it back into them and have a fresh start !

 

 

We only bought it on 23/7/10 and it went back in for a complete re-install in Sept after 5 weeks !! Now it's beggered again ,

 

Do I have any right to DEMAND a NEW PC ???

[KenB]

Hi and welcome to fpch

 

This should really have a thread to itself - perhaps one of the mods will split the topic.

 

Do I have any right to DEMAND a NEW PC ???

I would suspect not.

Your drive filling up and running slow is not a reason that PC World, or whoever sold you the machine, would accept as just reason for replacement.

 

How many Anti-Virus programs are you running?

If you have more than one then you will experience similar symptoms.

The same goes for Firewalls.

Your system probably came with a "free" AV. Have you installed another too ?

 

Windows Image Backup (93GB)

This is, as the name suggests, a complete backup of your system installation.

You can use it to restore Windows.

MS recommend that you use an external drive ( 200GB ) for this purpose.

Your image size is going to grow as your backup data grows.

see here for more information:

Back up and restore: frequently asked questions

 

 

66Gb - USER PC

I am not a Win7 user so not sure what this may be.

Is this just one file?

================

 

The slowness is probably not attributed to D:\.

 

As already said - it could be 2 AVs conflicting.

 

You could try running MBAM to see if you have any malware ( different from AV scan )

Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware: Malwarebytes

Scroll down to the Free version.

Install > Update > Run

[Zincubus]

Only the one Anti virus running , Norton AV and Firewall package , and yes the USER file is just one file .

[KenB]

Hi,

 

I am still unsure what "User PC" file / folder may be.

 

Does this show up in D:\ drive ?

If not it may be a hidden file / folder.

see here

 

Can you offer any ideas?

Is it a file or a folder?

If it is a folder - open it and see if you recognise anything inside.

If it is a file - it is huge !!

 

Did you run MBAM ?

[Dalo Harkin]

Are you sure that the PC doesnt use some kind of RAID technology?

 

The USER PC would suggest that that is the size of your user data, the OS, any programs and files that you have (66GB for this is excessively high unless you have games or videos etc installed?) you should be at most around the 30-40GB mark

 

Your windows image, may just have more than one image and the older ones could/should be removed, Is the system set to back up at a certain time/date?

[Zincubus]

After a set back to factory settings it is working as we speak although it has FROZEN quite a few times already . At least the intrenet is back up to speed again ... touch wood !

[Dalo Harkin]

Has it frozen and stayed frozen and requires a hard reset, or does it just hang and then come back to life again?

 

If the machine requires a hard reset then you are looking at a hardware issue, RAM or the HDDs themselves..

If it hangs and then responds then you are looking at either a spike in resources (which could be from anything like AV program, Malware etc) to drivers being needed..

Open control panel and then system, then device manager - are there any yellow exclamation marks next to anything? if so then you require drivers for those devices :)

[Zincubus]

Has it frozen and stayed frozen and requires a hard reset, or does it just hang and then come back to life again?

 

If the machine requires a hard reset then you are looking at a hardware issue, RAM or the HDDs themselves..

If it hangs and then responds then you are looking at either a spike in resources (which could be from anything like AV program, Malware etc) to drivers being needed..

Open control panel and then system, then device manager - are there any yellow exclamation marks next to anything? if so then you require drivers for those devices :)

 

 

It needs a HARD reset each time .

 

Even control alt delete has no effect .

 

Must remeember to try the Number Lock Button trick next time .