[full hard drive ??]

Hi, I running windows xp and my hard drive is full. 38.2GB used, 145MB free and twice have had 0 free. My programs total 2699 MB. My son says to crash it and my wife said to check with you for any HELP.. Any ideas

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Hello .... Welcome to GeeksToGo,, We will be happy to help you.

If this is a name brand system:
Make
Model
Operating System
Age of the computer
Memory Total
Hard Drive Size, How much free space

There are a couple of ways we can go about this.
We need to get you more room.
Most likely you are full because of what you have saved on the drive. You need to move off the extra pictures, word documents, videos, etc.
These need to go to CD/DVD or a backup hard drive. If you have no back up hard drive and have not backed up anything, then I strongly suggest you do so.
If the computer crashes (now or in future) you could lose all you have.
You can back up to external hard drive that is in a USB enclosure. We can cover that if need be.

my hard drive is full. 38.2GB used, 145MB free and twice have had 0 free

This would indicate you have a 40gb drive.

My programs total 2699 MB

Programs are taking 2.7gb
Windows will take a lot more. I am surprised that the computer is operating at all. With no room it will start crashing more.

Lets get a little wiggle room 1st. Atf cleaner does not install as a program so it is great for this task.

Please download ATF Cleaner by Atribune.

Double-click ATF-Cleaner.exe to run the program.
Under Main choose: Select All
Click the Empty Selected button.
If you use Firefox browserClick Firefox at the top and choose: Select All
Click the Empty Selected button.
NOTE: If you would like to keep your saved passwords, please click No at the prompt.
If you use Opera browserClick Opera at the top and choose: Select All
Click the Empty Selected button.
NOTE: If you would like to keep your saved passwords, please click No at the prompt.
Click Exit on the Main menu to close the program.
For Technical Support, double-click the e-mail address located at the bottom of each menu.
[/list]
Next, you should take a serious look at what programs you have installed and remove/un-install those you do not use.

[123Runner]

Hello .... Welcome to GeeksToGo,, We will be happy to help you.

If this is a name brand system:
Make
Model
Operating System
Age of the computer
Memory Total
Hard Drive Size, How much free space

There are a couple of ways we can go about this.
We need to get you more room.
Most likely you are full because of what you have saved on the drive. You need to move off the extra pictures, word documents, videos, etc.
These need to go to CD/DVD or a backup hard drive. If you have no back up hard drive and have not backed up anything, then I strongly suggest you do so.
If the computer crashes (now or in future) you could lose all you have.
You can back up to external hard drive that is in a USB enclosure. We can cover that if need be.

my hard drive is full. 38.2GB used, 145MB free and twice have had 0 free

This would indicate you have a 40gb drive.

My programs total 2699 MB

Programs are taking 2.7gb
Windows will take a lot more. I am surprised that the computer is operating at all. With no room it will start crashing more.

Lets get a little wiggle room 1st. Atf cleaner does not install as a program so it is great for this task.

Please download ATF Cleaner by Atribune.

Double-click ATF-Cleaner.exe to run the program.
Under Main choose: Select All
Click the Empty Selected button.
If you use Firefox browserClick Firefox at the top and choose: Select All
Click the Empty Selected button.
NOTE: If you would like to keep your saved passwords, please click No at the prompt.
If you use Opera browserClick Opera at the top and choose: Select All
Click the Empty Selected button.
NOTE: If you would like to keep your saved passwords, please click No at the prompt.
Click Exit on the Main menu to close the program.
For Technical Support, double-click the e-mail address located at the bottom of each menu.
[/list]
Next, you should take a serious look at what programs you have installed and remove/un-install those you do not use.

[full hard drive ??]

I have gone through Add/Remove programs. I did have some questions about removing several items, so I skipped them for the time being.

I would like to show you what I have left, but have no way of copying and pasting the list.

My Documents is only 8.54 MB

My Program Files Folder states 2.14 GB and then 1.61 GB on disk. Also when I open my Program Files Folder there are MANY program sub-folders which do not come up through Add/Remove Programs.

In removing unwanted programs and running the ATF Cleaner the free space is now 273 MB.

You had also asked for the following information:

Make: Dell
Model: Dimension 4600
Operating System: XP
Age of the computer: August 2003
Memory Total: 2.25 GB RAM
Hard Drive Size, How much free space: 38.2 GB, 272 mb


I also find in my Control Panel that I have TWO Add/Remove Icons, both of which I can access.

Since I can't post a list of programs showing in Add/Remove these are the ones for which I had questions:

Driver Cleaner 2.0: I get an error stating Can't Uninstall
Bubbles Screensaver: Screen just flashes, nothing happens
Ask Tool Bar says I need to shut Firefox to install
DVD Sentry: What is it and do I need it
j2se runtime environment 5.0 Update 10: Can I delete
Net Framework 2: Can I delete if I also have Net Framework 3
MSXMLO 4.0 SP2 (KB936818): ??? Needed
MSXMLO 4.0 SP2 (KB954430): See Above
MSXMLO 4.0 SP2 (KB973688): See Above
Shoutcase Source: Can I delete
Spyware Blaster: Can I delete

I have attached a photo of the files in My Programs, many of which I know I have deleted in the past, such as Norton Antivirus, yet it is still showing in this folder but does not propagate to the Add/Remove list.

In addition it seems that there must be something in the background we cannot see.

As I am not sure if my attachment worked, here is a copy to view. http://img.photobuck...rogramFiles.jpg

Edited by full hard drive ??, 08 November 2010 - 11:16 AM.

[The Skeptic]

When you remove a program there are leftovers that need to be removed manually. All the folders in Program Files that are related to programs that were removed should be deleted manually. There are programs, like Revo Uninstaller which remove all leftovers during the uninstallation. Unfortunately you cannot use Revo to clean leftovers from programs that were removed by Add/Remove.

Using TFC to create more space does not help much because the files are deleted from caches and temp folders which feel up gradually, as you use the computer, even if you don't add any data file to your hard disk.

Usually programs do not take that much space. What choke hard disks are documents, pictures, videos, music and downloads of all sorts. Since your documents are only 8.5 Mb, a surprisingly low volume, I believe that there are files of the above mentioned types that are stored in other libraries. First candidate is Desktop. Lots of people use Desktop to store files. Please check and see how things are in your computer. Another place could be your email libraries. These can take a considerable amount of space, especially when you have many attachments. If you use email program that stores the mail on the hard disk, please delete everything which is not essential. In general, try to find where the data is stored on your computer and delete, or back up and delete everything which is not essential.

You can be helped in this job by downloading and installing WinDirStat. Run the program and let it scan your hard disk. It will present a log which tell you the size of your folders and will give you a better idea where to look.

[full hard drive ??]

Thank you for attempting to help me. I downloaded and ran WinDirStat and I didn't find anything that helped because Windows is using most of the space on C.

Please see the attached 3 screencaps of the results of running WinDirStat.

1.

2.

3.

It is image 3 that is the most confusing because all those lettered items are what are using up the space. Where do we go from here.

[The Skeptic]

The problem is with Windows Installer which is of enormous size relative to total hard disk volume. To clean the folder Microsoft developed a tool called Windows Installer cleaner. Please download it, read the instructions and run it.

When finished, please run disk defragmentation.

[full hard drive ??]

Could you please provide a link for the Windows Installer Cleaner because I am not finding anything on the Microsoft site and don't want to download something that is going to do more harm than good.

Thanks for your help.

After posting this I did a search here at Geeks and found this post http://www.geekstogo...ost__p__1920737 by Edge202 which now makes it risky to run this app, any other suggestions?

I can't even find a folder called Installer under Windows on my C drive, so where is it hiding?

Edited by full hard drive ??, 09 November 2010 - 02:31 PM.

[The Skeptic]

Look in the log that you attached and you will see "installer" under windows. Download the utility and read the instructions in here here.I don't think you have much choice but to use the utility. Please note: the program will not uninstall your programs but will remove the huge amount of installation files that you want to remove.

[full hard drive ??]

I went to the "here" link you provided and found a link for download but NO instructions of any kind.

I Googled "How to use Windows Installer Cleanup" and found this which I attempted to follow, but it removed nothing.

It seems like I am on a wild goose chase in trying to find the information you want me to use. If there were directions on the majorgeeks site, can you please just copy and paste them here or provide a direct link to them?

Could you also tell me how to get rid of this error pop up?




Thank you

[The Skeptic]

Download the program and install it. Click Start > all programs > windows install cleanup. Now click Select All and then click Remove. Regarding the error message of SpywareGuard: Please reinstall it and remove through Add/Remove program (or leave it if you want to keep using it.

[full hard drive ??]

Download the program and install it. Click Start > all programs > windows install cleanup. Now click Select All and then click Remove. Regarding the error message of SpywareGuard: Please reinstall it and remove through Add/Remove program (or leave it if you want to keep using it.

The download from majorgeeks is not working. I downloaded it (again) and these are the files from which I had to choose for select all:



I chose select all, ran the program and then restarted my computer.

All the .msp files are still on my C drive as evidenced from the attached after running WinDirStat.

1.

2.

Next?

Also, I re-downloaded Spywareguard and it is doesn't propagate to my Add/Remove list, which I have two of and asked about earlier. I clicked everything off so it can't do anything and the message went away, but I want the program off my computer.

Edited by full hard drive ??, 11 November 2010 - 02:46 PM.

[123Runner]

For Spywareguard, From the link in my signature download and install and run Revo Uninstaller.

[The Skeptic]

The cleaner should have worked.We will try to find the folder and delete the files manually. I never did it before but I hope it will work.

Click My Computer and in the top menu click Tools > Folder Options > View. Uncheck Hide protected operating System files (not recommended) and apply. Try to run the cleaner again and see if it makes any difference. If it doesn't, Click Local Disk C, Click Windows and find the Installation folder which is half grayed. Open the folder and manually delete it's content.

Please note: like I said, I never did it before. Be aware that you do it at your own risk.

[full hard drive ??]

The cleaner should have worked.We will try to find the folder and delete the files manually. I never did it before but I hope it will work.

Click My Computer and in the top menu click Tools > Folder Options > View. Uncheck Hide protected operating System files (not recommended) and apply. Try to run the cleaner again and see if it makes any difference. If it doesn't, Click Local Disk C, Click Windows and find the Installation folder which is half grayed. Open the folder and manually delete it's content.

Please note: like I said, I never did it before. Be aware that you do it at your own risk.

My wife had already did the uncheck hide protected operating files, but the Installer folder still does not show itself. I would gladly manually delete the files, if I could ever find them..

[full hard drive ??]

For Spywareguard, From the link in my signature download and install and run Revo Uninstaller.

Spywareguard doesn't propagate into the uninstall area of Revo Uninstaller either. It apparently doesn't want to be deleted.