[olewoman]

My daughter bought this cheap old piece of junk just to get on the internet. It has 4.4 GB of storage...8% free, won't cleanup or defrag properly (of course). It does have 128 MB of RAM. I think the last person who had it installed an illegal copy over the original operating system and I can't clean it up. I have seen reference to a D:\restore in cleanup utitlies. Right now it has a CD drive recognized as D:, which only works when it is first booted up, then becomes like disabled. I need help! Can anyone help me at all....send me in the right direction please?

By the way, I don't have a media player right now, but I can install real player if i have to, I really don't have the room.

Thanks so much for your time.

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Need more information. What OS is it running, Windows 98 SE?

Sounds like you need to cleanup the hard drive to free up some space. Defrag is not going to buy you much, especially on such a small drive. Replacing the HD with a larger one or adding a small 2nd HD is also a possibility.

In IE, click on Tools then Internet Options. Delete files (including all off line content).
Delete all files in C:\Windows\temp.
Open Add or Remove Programs in Control Panel and uninstall anything that is not being used.
Empty the Recycle Bin.

[Ztruker]

Need more information. What OS is it running, Windows 98 SE?

Sounds like you need to cleanup the hard drive to free up some space. Defrag is not going to buy you much, especially on such a small drive. Replacing the HD with a larger one or adding a small 2nd HD is also a possibility.

In IE, click on Tools then Internet Options. Delete files (including all off line content).
Delete all files in C:\Windows\temp.
Open Add or Remove Programs in Control Panel and uninstall anything that is not being used.
Empty the Recycle Bin.

[olewoman]

I've cleaned it every way imaginable. I am sorry about the info thing. It is trying to run xp, I know it's like impossible, but I think I could get a decent webtv equivilent for her.....I have it trimmed down to nothing. Uninstalling all media and media players. Ran Trend, Panda, AntiSpyWare, Spybot and other assorted program utilities from unlockers to registry mechanics. It is still running, but only by a thread. When I do a defrag, I get about 9% free space. It won't run diskcleaner. I've let it run 14 hours and it never made it past the 3rd light on the guage.

About 30% of the Defrag Utilities are green. (Umovable. I figure it's the operating system.) Then there is alot of solid red...fragmented color...should be fixed...needs defragged with 30% red. Then there is blue...the good stuff....there must be 30% blue, but really choppy looking. The rest is white...my storage...almost invisible. That's just looking at that particular stat. I have already done a numerous series of scans. I've been cleaning and defragging for 2 days now.

Had it up to about 20% full space...but something happened to it. I don't know if it is possible to delete so much that it takes your computer forever clean of everything you did at one time? How else can I help...what else can I try to do? I think I should get 40%-50% - free space with no programs in there...and I have 9%. I would be overjoyed with 30% free space. I am trying to get this to at least hold a real player and email, messenger without things "not responding" etc. Thanks for talking to me.

[Ztruker]

XP on that machine is pretty much a waste of time, but if you're determined, here are a couple more things to check.

Right click on the Recycle Bin and reduce it from 10% down to 1% or 2%.
Click on Start then Run, enter c:\windows\system32\restore\rstrui. Click on Change Restore Settings then the Settings button. Reduce the slider value to 1% or 2%.
On the System Restore page, check Turn off System Restore then click Apply. Once that completes, uncheck Turn off System Restore and click Apply again. This will delete all existing restore points then create a new one.

What Anti-virus software are you using. If it's one of the suites like Symantec or McAfee, uninstall it and install AVG Free in it's place. Has a much smaller footprint on the hard drive.

[olewoman]

Thanks for the tips. At least it's something to try to get a couple of crumbs. I defrag and compress files constantly, and I am getting around 1% a day gain just on compressing file, I should be hitting 10% soon now. At least the task manager says it's doing something. I hope so. Thanks again.

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