Disk cleanup suggestions manual or in a program

The power in power-user comes mostly from having restorable backups! :) For example, earlier, I was too aggressive with Revo in removing several things from both laptops, one came up with a dll error which sank two Cyberlink products, the other lost the 3D whatever so my virtual fish tank - tanked (no video). Popped in MR for one, IfW into the other, 1.5 hours later, both laptops working without those new errors. Later, I plan to use PBlack and Snick DISM++ command-line to hopefully install some pesky WUs.

"...chkdsk /f which Norton demands at virtually every run of Ghost..." If Norton Ghost will not backup until chkdsk is run and successfully solves logical problems on the HDD, that means very likely -- AOMEI Backupper, Image for Windows, Macrium Reflect -- all will return similar error message. That's my guess.