sorry if it seems rude that the first thing i post here is a demand for help but i'm going crazy about this @_@
i have a new (less than 6 months old) lenovo thinkpad x61 with a 100gb hard drive running windows xp sp3.
recently i noticed that i had very little space left, and so did some cleaning. using revouninstaller & ccleaner, i uninstalled unused programs, deleted temporary files, got rid of videos/pictures/music i didn't need anymore, etc.
doing that, i was able to free up about 8gb. but i felt i should still have a lot more space. according to my computer>>C:\>>right click>>properties, i have used 76.8gb out of 87.7gb, with 10.8gb left over.
what on earth is taking all that space?? my personal documents (music, videos, photos, other files) are all in the 'my documents' folder, and right click>>properties shows that the folder contains a total of 4.93gb. i had a hard time believing that the rest of the 76.8gb was used up by program and system files.
did some quick searching on lifehacker(.com) and came to a program called jdiskreport, and scanned my c:\ drive. (i only have one partition by the way, everything's on c:\). according to the report it gave me, the files in C:\ totaled to 19.7gb! that number seems reasonable to me. it's probably composed of my personal files, program files & application data, and backup windows files that automatically came with my lenovo thinkpad.
but hmm.. one thing (right click>>properties) tells me that 76.8gb is occupied, and another (jdiskreport) tells me, no, only 19.7gb is occupied…….. which one is it? where is the 57gb of space that i'm missing??
i posted the same information on yahoo! answers and couldn't believe the stupidity in the answers i got… (oh, just uninstall your pr0gramz!, defrag your hard drive!) ……. hope you guys can actually help me out!
misc:
- i DID defragment my hard drive, but as far as i know, that does NOT change the amount of space used, right?
- i did delete system restore points and $NT_uninstall (?) folders (which accounted for ~6gb)
click–Start—right-click "my computer" and choose -manage-
when the "computer management" window opens, maximize and click -disk management-
in the upper-right pane,
what drive(s) are listed and the space and free ?
Tallon41
Well defragging really just takes a bunch of little spaces and turns it into a big space for larger programs, generally speaking, it's much more complex than that. But yes it doesn't give you much space back, however it was still a good idea to try.
Something small would be to get ATF-Cleaner and clear your temp files, however they are in the C: Drive so they should still show up in the total size of the C: Drive when you right click it.
Also, try going to Control Panel > Add/Remove Programs and sort the programs by size and see what your biggest programs are and how much space they take up.
@tallon41: i see 2 partitions
preload (C:\) capacity: 87.71gb free space: 10.88gb
SERVICE001 capacity: 5.44gb free space: 1.41gb
so i guess i was wrong about my disk not being partitioned. it looks like SERVICE001 is a hidden partition where lenovo put all the backup windows files.
@vectris: trust me, it's not my temp files. they are cleared on a regular basis, and it never gets to be more than a few hundred mb or so. i don't think it's the programs i have either.
microsoft office ultimate 2007 (469mb)
microsoft .NET framework 2.0 service pack 1 (186mb)
J2SE runtime environment 5.0 update 6 (152mb)
java™ 6 update 7 (136mb)
java™ 6 update 5 (114mb)
[^ can i uninstall this by the way?]
the rest are all under 100mb and come to a total of about 1gb.
definitely does not explain where all my space went. and all these program files are included C:\ anyway so i don't see this as part of the problem.
@dachew: the 'documents and settings' folder contains 5.85gb.
@tallon41: sorry, but did you actually read my posts ? i stated in my original post that i already do use revouninstaller and ccleaner to uninstall programs and delete temporary files.
one thing i know is that the 55+ GIGABYTES of unaccounted space is NOT being taken up by temporary internet files. i also already listed my biggest programs, the biggest being microsoft office. while that's big, FIFTY FIVE GIGABYTES is a LOT bigger. something ELSE is going on here.
also i don't understand what you're saying about my having a 120gb hd? those capacities listed are the full TOTAL capacities, not amount of used space. i therefore have a TOTAL harddrive of 93.15gb (87.71+5.44)… i think i know what size my hard drive is, i bought the thing.
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i know i sound rude but honestly it's just because i'm seriously frustrated with this. i'm been asking for help in lots of places without finding any actual solutions..
You will need to register as you can see in the left hand pane, once you have done the test, post the TechExpress link back into this thread for us to analise for you if you need help with the results.
These are good tests to do in your circumstances, especially as to where all your HD space has gone? Many other interesting things will be also analyzed about your system, none of it is of a personal nature. Here is the PCPitstop home page if you would like to check it out before doing anything.
The following is a set of directions I post occasionally on freeing up hard drive space. Some you've already done but some you have not, so read through it and use what you can.
Start with temporary internet files:
In Internet Explorer, click on Tools / Internet Options.
Under Temporary Internet Files (commonly called TIF), click on Delete Files.
Check the "Delete all offline content" box and click OK
Next, reduce the amount of space allocated to System Restore. It defaults to 12% of the drive which is way to much. Set it so you get as close to 500MB as possible. Some folks here recommend 300MB, so your choice. To change it:
Start / Settings / Control Panel
Double click on System.
Click on the Restore tab.
Select C: then click the Settings button. Move the slider to reduce the amount, can make a big difference.
Reduce the size of the recycle bin. The default setting is 10% of the drive which is way too much.
Right click on Recycle Bin and select Properties.
Move the slider from 10% down to 2% or so. Click on C: to see how much space that will allocate. Set to 1% if it's still more than 300MB.
Click Apply and OK to exit. If you ever delete anything bigger than the defined size, you'll get a notice that it's too big to fit and do you want to delete it anyway? Just click yes and it's gone, permanently.
To see what is using space on your hard drive, install a program called SequoiaView. Gives you a great visual picture of what is using up drive space. Get it here: http://www.win.tue.nl/sequoiaview/. Before running SequoiaView, you should make all files and extensions visible. Do this by:
Control Panel / Folder Options / View Tab.
Select Show hidden files and folders.
Uncheck Hide extensions for known file types.
Uncheck Hide protected opeating system files [Recommended]
Also, in SequoiaView, click on View then Color and check Enable color scheme. Makes the displayed data much easier to read.
Finally, uninstall all programs you are not using. Some of them can take up a lot of room.
Here are instructions for disabling shadow copy.
I do not suggest that you leave system restore turned off!
If you turn it off, and then turn it back on create a new restore point at that time.
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Great and helpful post. Thanks so much, checked all my settings finding them as you suggest.
Anymore like that?
kind regards,