Help on clearing up memory space on Hard drive.?

Question

So I have a Window's Vista Basic. I've been trying my best to clear up the memory since I have less than five gigs left. I tried the disk cleanup to clear excess junk. I tried deleting the shadow files; I uninstalled many programs I did not even use/need. And I went through most of the files I know to delete unwanted stuff. Even so, I still cannot clear up the disk to the point it has ALOT of gigs. Is there some place(s) that I could possibly look in to see what's up? And I get a windows update EVERY SINGLE MORNING. I'm guessing that is taking up a lot of space. Would that assumption be true?

Answer 1

Some of the space is gradually used by the system either as dynamic virtual memory (pagefile), event logs, antivirus updates and also system restore points.



System Restore takes snapshots of your config and saves them from time to time.

You can configure System Restore to use less space, You can set your virtual memory settings to use a fixed amount of disk space and you can set some of your directories to compress files to save space.



Windows Updates are generally small - a few megs each, it's more likely temp space - have you tried clearing your browser cache?

Answer 2

I would open up Windows Explorer and search for any file on the C drive this is over 5 meg and look for a folder that has a lot of these files. You can sort the list by file size. I know XP uses Leave the files ending with .sys alone. Also I would avoid the windows directory. After doing all that deletion, you should reboot then do a defrag. Also look into getting an external hard drive. Unless your machine has space and go enough power supply for a secondary internal hard drive. I have one computer with no space for an internal hard drive and another where that has the space but no cables to connect too. If you can do an internal hard drive then you may have to deal with jumper switch that turns it into a secondary drive with your C drive as the master drive.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumper_(computing)

I have 200 gigs of videos that I can live without but they are stored on a portable external hard drive by iomega.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=iomega+external+hard+drive&aq=0&oq=iomega+&aqi=g10

You would not want to install programs on an external hard drive. You can install programs if you can get a secondary internal hard drive. Both will drain more power from your power supply. So you may have to pay for a better power supply. Windows updates can be quite small. And you never said if you emptied your recycle bin. And defrag your computer about every other month. I usually pick the first week of odd numbered months and let defrag run overnight. And every 6 to 12 months I run a DOS command called

chkdsk /r

but I do not think Vista or Windows 7 has that anymore. It scans for bad sectors. I think it stopped with XP.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CHKDSK

Answer 3

Can i make a suggestion that worked for me. if you go to my computer and right click your drive.



click clean up. Make sure after its done its thing and presents you with some options. That You tick the box hibernation files old versions of Vista if you done any reinstalling. make sure there all ticked.



You should see a big lump of stuff go.



also the CC cleaner a good tip as suggested.



But as well as that i also have Privacy eraser for 30 days now why i have this is To get rid of my cache you can try it by all means.



its worked for little me i was in the same ship :))



http://www.privacyeraser.com/







One more tip: Download and try Google chrome its so fast it has its minus but when you learn how to drive it its ok remember click the spanner in the top right hand corner and chose clear browsing data.



i have also installed



antivirus http://www.pctools.com/free-antivirus/ checks all the email in and out but most of why i have it when you get a mail from me it has no virus found written on it checked by pc tools. which i think is nice.. reassuring for others.. looks like you care too



firewall http://www.pctools.com/firewall/





spyware terminator free http://www.spywareterminator.com/ it has a resident shield built in its brilliant



i don't get any of the spyware and malware problems these guys get because i don't go to porn sites to be honest



well not yet anyway.. :))

Answer 4

back up what you need and restore your system.

Answer 5

download ccleaner here: http://www.filehippo.com/download_ccleaner/