I have XP on Laptop and need to clean hard drive

[enimary]

I got down to just several hundred KB left out of 16 GB. I purchased an external hard drive, moved all my files to the new drive, but still didn't gain a lot of memory back on the C Drive. Properties gives me this information:

Used space: 16,221,167,616 bytes or 15.1 GB
Free space: 1,429,282,816 or 1.33 GB
Capacity: 17.650,450,432 or 16.4 GB

I have several icons on the desk top and the only thing I can figure out is I have files I need to delete; files I am not familiar with that may not be necessary and is taking up a lot of space.

I can't defrag the hard drive because I need 15% free space whereas I only have 8% space.

Any and all suggestions would be appreciated. I am not the most computer sauve person, so whatever you can do to help me, I need your help.

Thanks.

 

[NosferatuX]

Hi enimary and welcome to the forum!

Please download, install, configure and run this small nifty program - CCleaner
That should free up some massive bytes for yah

Now for what CCleaner couldn't do, you can do the following steps;

Press Win+R, type cleanmgr /sageset:50
Read the choices. No real harm can come if you choose all though then click OK when you're done.
Now press Win+R again and this time, type cleanmgr /sagerun:50

That should give more extra spaces.

Cheers

 

[lappydog]

Are you going to install Windows 7?
I see you backed up all your files. Insert Windows 7 CD, custom install, choose format/delete C and install.

 

[enimary]

Thanks. I will give it a try.

Hi enimary and welcome to the forum!

Please download, install, configure and run this small nifty program - CCleaner
That should free up some massive bytes for yah

Now for what CCleaner couldn't do, you can do the following steps;

Press Win+R, type cleanmgr /sageset:50
Read the choices. No real harm can come if you choose all though then click OK when you're done.
Now press Win+R again and this time, type cleanmgr /sagerun:50

That should give more extra spaces.

Cheers

 

[enimary]

Thank you. I will give it a try. It has been so frustrating, especially purchasing the external drive with lots of space. Now maybe I can get the computer to run faster.

Thanks again.

 

[enimary]

Not planning on Windows 7 at this time. Thanks.

 

[NosferatuX]

Thank you. I will give it a try. It has been so frustrating, especially purchasing the external drive with lots of space. Now maybe I can get the computer to run faster.

Thanks again.

You're most welcome

 

[kword88]

i dont know your level of experience, but.....

run disk cleanup wizard
uninstall any unused programs
uninstall any unneeded windows features
reduce the amount of space reserved for the recycle bin and IE cache
compress the C: drive
and this little program freed up over a gig for me:

http://raproducts.org/click/click.php?id=7

 

[enimary]

Thanks everyone

I was able to get a little more space, but still not enough to defrag. I think I am going to take most of the icons off the desktop, see if that will help. Then defrag and put back on the ones I need daily.

Again, thanks for all your help.

 

[kword88]

removing icons from the desktop will not free up any space. they are only shortcuts. you must uninstall the programs that the shortcuts point to in order to free up space. if you need more implicit instruction for my previous suggestions, let me know

 

[AGlobalThreatsK]

You need to find what is taking up so much space..

You can start in the Add/Remove Programs in control panel

To find the rest you'll just have to right-click folders and go to properties and see how much space its using, and keep searching until you find exactly what it is using up so much space. Windows does not use 15GB, you have some big files/programs somewhere.

Keep in mind that simply removing unused files won't speed up windows tremendously. What you need to do is free up CPU usage, RAM usage, and optimize your windows settings for performance. If you right-click on the taskbar (The bar along the bottom of the screen by default) and go to Task Manager, you can click on the 'Processes' tab and see how much stuff is actually running and in-use. Windows only NEEDS 12 processes.. so that gives you an idea of how much extra stuff you have running on that computer. Under 40 processes is ok, under 30 is ideal. The number doesn't really mean anything though, its all about cpu usage and memory usage and how far you're willing to go to make xp fast.

If you're not very computer savvy this doesn't sound like a job for you. Perhaps you know a good friend that works on computers for a living and he can help you out a bit.

If you're trying it on your own and learning as your doing, you will more than likely make mistakes and make the operating system unusable, or simply remove something you didn't want to and then regret it.