PC help DESPIRATELY needed

[DP_LOVER]

Ok so i have a pretty basic laptop but it has always done the job as i only use it for surfing the net and and for itunes. Its got a 136GB hard drive, and lately the whole drive has pretty much filled to capacity. As im typing this i have 76 megabytes free!

Thing is i have hardly anything on the computer. My itunes library is 75GB, and all the files in my documents total only 1.3GB, and i have no idea what the rest of the hard drive is filled with, I have microsoft office and one or two other programmes but certainly not enough to be even close to capacity on my hard drive. I have cleared cookies and recent internet files, done a disc cleanup and defragged it, and even gone through my list of installed programmes and deleted things i either dont need or never use and still im pretty much full and i dont know what else i can remove, or why its so full in the first place when i keep all my photos, movies, important files etc on an external hard drive.

Any computer whizzes able to offer suggestions of things i could do to clear it up? things to look out for as to why its so full?

thanks

 

[StanScratch]

Do you have Norton Antivirus by any chance? A couple of years back, I had it, and for some reason, the virus definitions began eating up the harddrive in a big way.

 

[GodsEmbryo]

You need to figure out everything that's running on your computer.
It's always a good idea to make sure you have the latest updates of everything and that you scan your computer for malware, viruses etc. just to rule out the option of something fishy going on.

First and foremost open System Restore and create a back up BEFORE deleting files.
Explore your hard drive and delete old install and temp files. Right click on start/choose explore. Under tools folder options choose to show all files. This will allow you to see the hidden folders. There is a lot of junk stored in the temp directories. It is safe to delete all files in any folder named temp. But if you are unsure remove files with for example .log and .tmp
You can run a search for *.tmp and you can delete all of these files that the pc will alow you to. Some are active and wil not delete.
Windows creates startup files to help the pc run faster (yeah right) in a directory in windows named " prefetch" These are safe to delete. Windows will recreate them as needed. If unsure, just let it be.

And as always use google. There are some good forums out there where you can ask for help. Most of the times they will ask you to run a small program on your computer and to upload the log file after running. It'll give them all information to see what's running on your computer and what shouldn't be running.

 

[gunslingingbird]

DP porn takes up twice as much hard drive space as regular porn. You're welcome.

 

[DP_LOVER]

thanks for the help GodsEmbyro, i have done the things you suggested and deleted a few other things that i dont use or need and i now have just over 3GB free, its still too little considering what i actually have on the hard drive, there must be some hidden files somewhere taking up the space but its a start. Thanks

 

[GodsEmbryo]

Let's see what else you can do...

It's possible your disk space is taken up by Windows Restore Points. They use A LOT of disk space. So if you turn Restore Points in Windows off it normally should delete all previous restore points too.
After you did this, just make sure to go back into system restore, turn it on and create a current restore point. The amount of recovered disk space can be significant. I have a feeling this could be your problem

If you still have problems with disk space after this, download WINDIRSTAT

I googled a review with download link for ya: see Premium Link Upgrade

This will analyze your disk space usage. It'll take some time to run but it's worth it. Maybe it'll tell you something.

 

[fred2265]

It's a long time since I have used Windows, but I seem to remember Windows itself + Office take up a pretty big chunk of hard disk. Windows also grabs large amounts of space for its swapfile and temp files, not to mention system restore points as someone else has already mentioned. I also found Outlook used a huge amount of space for its archives and saved emails.

Although you can cut many of these things back to save space, I think you would be better off with a second disk just for your data. As you are on a laptop, consider an external one, you can get a huge amount of space pretty cheap nowadays.

 

[Frank Fire]

Have you cleared out the event view log? that also helps, What web browser are you using? some of them have there own cookies that have to be cleared out there own way