[ucwoody]

Well this is probably a simple problem for someone that knows PCs. I ran out of space on my 40 Gig hard drive, added an 80 Gig slave drive, and moved about 5 gigs over to the 80. That was good for about six months, now the C drive on my 40 is nearing full again.

Everything I create I put into MY DOCUMENTS which contains less than 500M total. I haven't added much in the way of programs, certainly nothing big. Yet, right now I'm showing I have less than 800M on my C.

I went thru the windows help thing about clearing room. I can't compress anymore, I threw out my trash, I cleared any temporaries, I went thru my add/remove to see if I could get rid of any programs. This all didn't hardly do anything.

When I check my C drive folders, I find the biggest users are DOCUMENTS AND SETTINGS (17G!), WINDOWS (9G), PROGRAMS (4G), HP (.5G), i386 (.5G) then small ones. This adds to 31 and change but then somehow my "used space" is 34G. Though its a 40G drive, I can only use a total of 35. So now I'm getting near locked.

I could move files from MY DOCUMENTS, but that isn't the root of my problem, it's these other huge folders that are. I have no idea what DOCUMENTS AND SETTINGS is but this is huge. Can I get rid of something here without hurting me? Inside that I have three folders I know little about: ADMINISTRATION (9.7g!), ALL USERS (1.5), and DEFAULT USER (5.4G!).

Any other ideas on how I can manage this without trying to switch my drive? I don't have a clue how to do that?

Ideas welcomed. Thx
Woody

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Hi there

Firstly I assume you are not using winME as stated in your personal details, right? It may helpful if we know which OS you are using though.

You said the sum total of the folder sizes is less than the total space used on the hard drive. This could be for a number of reasons :
* hidden files/folders in the root of the drive - eg restore folder, swap file etc
* badly fragmented drive
* incorrect files sizes being reported
* viruses

I suggest you move your documents to the slave drive & use the slave drive for furture documents & downloads etc, then defrag the C drive.

If you are using XP, you can move the documents folder by creating a new folder on the D drive (slave drive). Then go to the start menu & right click on My documents. Select properties & click on the target tab. Click on Move, select the new folder for the documents & click Yes to move the documents to the new location.

You can also move the temporary Internet files folder to the D drive & the swap file (virtual memory) to the D drive as well.

[Samm]

Hi there

Firstly I assume you are not using winME as stated in your personal details, right? It may helpful if we know which OS you are using though.

You said the sum total of the folder sizes is less than the total space used on the hard drive. This could be for a number of reasons :
* hidden files/folders in the root of the drive - eg restore folder, swap file etc
* badly fragmented drive
* incorrect files sizes being reported
* viruses

I suggest you move your documents to the slave drive & use the slave drive for furture documents & downloads etc, then defrag the C drive.

If you are using XP, you can move the documents folder by creating a new folder on the D drive (slave drive). Then go to the start menu & right click on My documents. Select properties & click on the target tab. Click on Move, select the new folder for the documents & click Yes to move the documents to the new location.

You can also move the temporary Internet files folder to the D drive & the swap file (virtual memory) to the D drive as well.

[ucwoody]

Thx, Samm. You are spot on. I'm really running XP PRO on my PC. I put in WinME cuz I was actually helping a friend with his problem b4.

Ok, well, sure I can cut and past it over to the new 80. Long term I prefer not to do that since I plan to share everything from that file. I defragged not too long ago, so I may free up a bit of room, but it'll suprise me if I get too much.

I kinda fell like if I took it all out and I defrag, I'm still going to land in the same spot--out of room again in no time at all. I've somehow consumed another 5 Gigs in the last month and I don't know how I did it when ALL the files I've produced don't add up to half a Gig total.

I understand what you are saying will help short term. For the longer term I need to a quantum change. Are the folders that I mentioned supposed to be that big. 4Gigs of programs doesn't seem excessive. What is that other stuff, do you know and can I reduce that?

Yes, if I don't know something, I'm ready to humiliate myself to get something done, no sweat.

[gritbox]

i dont know much but i do know a while ago there was some nasty virus i had which made my computer think the hard drive was full when in reality it was not. maybe if u go through the virus removal help section of this site you will be helped

[Retired Tech]

Add in system restore if on

[ucwoody]

I have my virus dats updated automatically daily, so I'm confident on the virus situation. Thx.
Keith, I'm not sure what you are saying. What are you saying to add? I did eliminate all the system restore points except for the most recent one to try to clear up room.

[Retired Tech]

Sorry, I meant that you should include the space used by system restore if you run it

[brettkun]

Use your Google G-mail account to store some stuff. I dunno for sure but heard about such a contraption. Still will only give you 2.7 some odd gb extra to play with maybe its enough to store halo combat evolved maybe not. And I could get scolded for posting such a abusive post who knows it may not be ethical to use your google account as storage. I was about to post a link but figured you all if curious enough, seek and ye shall find.

[ucwoody]

Thx Keith. Yes, the restore is why I can only use 35 of my 40 Gigs.
Brett, I don't have problems moving stuff of my own creation over to my 80G drive for space, so I can do that rather than my Gmail.
This issue is still, why is my space being gobbled up on my C? I'm not putting that much stuff here. Another few months I'm in trouble and don't know what is causing it.
If someone can help be with a root cause here and/or ideas of what these huge files are that are eating my space with what I can safely delete, boy I'd like that.

[Tyger]

Documents and Settings contain your, and any other users, folders, including another My Documents, if you have a My Documents in the root directory. I would certainly explore Documents and Settings completely to find what is actually in it, checking properties all the way. It also has temporary files in it which can be deleted. I don't remember the name, but you can download software which will give you a good graphic view of what is in your drive.

[UV_Power]

I'm not sure if you've tried this yet or not, but have you tried a DiskCleanup? It clears out a lot of temporary things that you may not need anymore.

Go to Start-> Programs-> Accessories-> System Tools-> Disk Cleanup.

It will take a while to analyze your drives so be patient. Also, before you clean it up, make sure you know exactly what is going to be "cleaned up" before you go through with it.

Hope this helps!

[ucwoody]

Thx UV. I should have been more specific on the "window help thing". That was disk cleanup and I did all I could there.

[UV_Power]

When Samm suggested that you move stuff to the D drive (which I agree is a great way to free up some of your C drive), you said:

Ok, well, sure I can cut and past it over to the new 80. Long term I prefer not to do that since I plan to share everything from that file.

I'm confused. I assume you mean you wanna keep it in a shared folder. You can share folders that are on the D drive too. Did you mean something else when you said 'share'?

[ucwoody]

Much of the stuff in MY DOCUMENTS on my C drive I would prefer not shared. The other drive, being shared, would require lots of sorting to shift it over.

[Samm]

Much of the stuff in MY DOCUMENTS on my C drive I would prefer not shared.  The other drive, being shared, would require lots of sorting to shift it over.

Sounds like you have the entire D drive shared at the moment, right? If so, you can unshare the drive but then set up sharing on individual folders on the D instead.
This way, other people only have access the folders that you've marked as shared & nothing else on that drive.