24 replies to this topic

[RolfieB]

My laptop is now 5 yrs old & has a 500gb hard drive. Partitioned as C (os) 116gb & D (data) 327 gb. Looks like there is an unassigned of 21gb also.

For a short while I have been getting a message informing me that C drive is more or less full. T'would appear I have 4gb of free space left.

I still have 215 gb of free space on D drive.

I have had a look at what's on C drive & it looks like mainly programs, as photos, music & movies are on D drive.

Being a computer numpty I don't want to fugg things up messing, when I'm not confident of what I'm doing,If you get my drift.

So come on guys & gals, what can I do to free up some space on C drive.

 

[dmmsta]

As a starting point its probably worth looking at running the Disk Clean Up tool (twice, once as normal the second time using the "Clean Up System Files" button, as Windows has a habit of leaving a lot of crud around.

 Disk_Clean_Up.png   14.78KB   0 downloads

 

If you're unsure whats safe to remove, make a list of the biggest entries on the list the above shows, and I can help further.

 

Also have a look at Jam-Software Treesize (Free version).

That will tell you where the space is being eaten up...might have things on there you didn't expect (or need).

https://www.jam-soft.../treesize_free/

[RolfieB]

O.K. ran disc clean up twice & I can gain a grand total of 1.1 Gb.

Biggest is windows update cleanup at 1.06Gb.

I can't believe I have filled 110Gb with nothing. I rarely install software & if I'm honest mainly use the laptop for email & t'internet nowadays. Maybe the odd bit of printing, but that only seems to be a couple of times a year now.

So I'm at a loss  .

 

I've now just downloaded & ran the software from the link.

Got to say it's all double dutch to me.

Appears windows is eating up 72.5Gb.

Users 17.9Gb.

Program Data 14.9Gb.

Programme Files (x86) 3.7Gb.

13 Files 3Gb.

Garmin 1.8Gb.

Programme Files 1.4Gb.

 

Then there are 11 other entries from 809Mb down to 2 bytes.

Edited by RolfieB, 16 October 2016 - 07:22 pm.

[TYREDNGRUMPEE]

Shrink D: about 250GB

then Expand C: about 200 GB

 

Easus Partition Master Free Edition is your friend (free)

 

Make sure you're plugged into the power brick. You wouldn't want the laptop shutting down mid-data move or during a partition resize.

 

OR

 

You can also shrink and extend volumes under Administrative Tools>Computer Management>Storage (opening the task Right Click>Run as Administrator)

 

FIRST-FIRST-FIRST

CHECK TO SEE HOW MANY ENTRIES ARE STORED IN SYSTEM RESTORE.

YOU MIGHT BE BACKED UP FOR MORE TIMES THAN YOU REALLY NEED IF YOU ARE USING THIS OPTION.

if you can ditch some of this surplus data, it will open up some space and save you time moving data that you would delete after resizing the partitions.

Edited by TYREDNGRUMPEE, 16 October 2016 - 07:35 pm.

[RolfieB]

Aargh! I've just binned my whole music collection all 47Gb of it. Should have just kicked this thing into touch.

[TKH]

I'd suggest downloading ccleaner from somewhere like www.download.com - the free version works perfectly fine. Try running that. Analyse the disk first and then do a cleanup. While you're running it you can clean up your registry a bit by running the registry cleaner.  

 

If that doesn't get you anywhere, try looking at what applications you have installed. Most PCs certainly from a few years ago were full of bloatware - loads of stuff the manufacturer of the laptop was paid to install. Things like crappy games you probably didn't know you had on your machine. Get rid of them. If in doubt, take a snapshot and post on here and someone will be able to help you make the right decision.

 

At 5 years old it's likely to be Windows 7 on your PC. Did you upgrade to Windows 10? That leaves an image of your old install in case you want to go back.

 

Check your download and documents areas to see what's in there. Check the desktop to make sure you just have shortcuts and not applications  or documents.

 

Try also downloading a decent disk defragmenter from download.com and run that against d and c. If nothing else it will tidy up your disk partitions and make file retrieval quicker.

 

I take it you have an up to date security package on there - antivirus, etc. Run a full scan and see if that reveals anything untoward.

 

If all else fails you could re-partition your c and d drives to make the c bigger and d smaller. That's a bit more involved but not impossible. You could also release some of the 21gb if that is really free.

[TYREDNGRUMPEE]

Aargh! I've just binned my whole music collection all 47Gb of it. Should have just kicked this thing into touch.

 

This can be recovered.

 

Recuva.

[RolfieB]

As I type my music is magically restoring itself thanks to TNG & his recuva.

Already ran disc defrag & only 1% so doesn't need defragging.

Checked through docs & download earlier today & cleared out a little bit.

Did upgrade to 10 ages ago, but reverted back after a couple of weeks due to issues. 

Will have to go in depth tomorrow.

[TYREDNGRUMPEE]

As I type my music is magically restoring itself thanks to TNG & his recuva.

 

Files are not deleted immediately.

They are flagged so that they might be overwritten when the OS needs disk space.

Usually older "deletes" are overwritten first, so that files you've just deleted should be totally recoverable.

 

Here is a thought.

You send an email from your account.

It is saved as SENT against your account.

Your contact gets a copy of the email and that can be ARCHIVED or sit in the inbox.

EVERY email has a sent and a received component.

Your and my email gets saved courtesy of Google / Microsoft.

If say, you are sending a CLASSIFIED document to a private email server, a copy of the sent component would reside at the sending side as well as on the receiving side.

CLASSIFIED, > government maybe?

 

So when the powers that be, say that 33,000 Hillary emails have been deleted, they know what CLASSIFIED information has been sent out, also that it may have been hacked, but more importantly they just don't know who that information has been sent to subsequently.

 

Naughty Hillary.

[ChrisG]

Do you mean there's a directory called Programme Data?  If so that's probably been put there by something you have installed and you'd be able to set it up to operate from D instead of C if you can work out what software it is.

 

Users will include your account details, and within that your My Documents, My Music, etc folders.  All that can be configured to run off D instead of C as well.  Can't remember how in older versions but in Win10 you right click on Documents and under Properties there's a File Location tab that allows you to move it.  I'd assume older versions of Windows are Similar.

 

 

However I'd highly recommend backing up all your data before messing about with it too much.  You can get 64GB USB flash drives for about £15 these days which would do the job.

[RolfieB]

Well I've just downloaded & ran cc cleaner & have freed up 47Gb mainly from media player. Lots of jpeg's apparently  . Musics still there so happy with that.

Cleaned up the registry at the same time.

Must be more I can do.

[Robodene]

You could transfer some stuff to an external hard drive. Jpegs, for example. I am about to do that because of similar problems to yours.

[drewpy]

I'm thinkling of getting a NAS drive, all my peeps can share on the local network as the drive just connects to my wireless hub.

Would only need to store programmes then

[TKH]

I'm thinkling of getting a NAS drive, all my peeps can share on the local network as the drive just connects to my wireless hub.

Would only need to store programmes then

 

I have 3 nas drives, 2 which are internet accessible and behave as a cloud. I love using them but they can be a bit pricey if yu just want to stick a few tens of gb of stuff I have about 800gb on one, well over a terrabyte on another and about 400gb on the smallest. 

 

I know a few people who keep there music and or piccies an an external drive. But they can crash so backup is always worth while...

Well I've just downloaded & ran cc cleaner & have freed up 47Gb mainly from media player. Lots of jpeg's apparently  . Musics still there so happy with that.

Cleaned up the registry at the same time.

Must be more I can do.

 

Ccleaner doesn't usually destroy good files. the JPGs would usually be pictures of some sort. Some cameras save to JPG (jpeg).

[ChrisG]

you might find media player had been set to download album covers.

[drewpy]

thinking of  getting this

Synology DiskStation DS115j with 2 TB

[TKH]

Synology get

 

 

thinking of  getting this

Synology DiskStation DS115j with 2 TB

 

 

Synology get good reviews usually. I can't comment on any one product as I have netgear kit. 

[dmmsta]

I've got a Synology CS406e

 

Its a bit old skool, but more than capable for domestic use.

 

I've got 8TB raw, but running RAID 10, so 4TB usable.  I have all the familes photos, movies, tv etc saved.

Only thing that exists on PCs/Laptops is transient data or things that are needed on the go...

 

This doesn't help you much Rolfie...but is food for thought...

[fixitsan]

Offline storage is the way to go.
Home servers and network drives are cheap now, for all the trouble they can save.

As above i have Netgear, and also Western Digital...2 drives permanently running for 4 years, one mirrors the other and one is in a portable dock......so if we visit friends and they ask to see family photos we can grab the portable drive and take it with us as a large USB storage device.

When it comes to suitable softwate to keep your mirrored drives up to date, there are lots of good programmes, but at least one of my machines uses the basic Microsoft 'Synch Toy'..... most recent versions of windows and Mac have adequate back up routines

[muddy]

All these home servers and dedicated hard drives makes me wonder what files are that large, numerous or important to save in a domestic household. Gil - Scot Heron was wrong, everything gets bleedin televised📡💻🎬