# Cleaning up my hard drive **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 20, 2009, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cleaning-up-my-hard-drive/510874 "2009-09-20T20:49:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2009, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cleaning-up-my-hard-drive/510874/1 "2009-09-20T20:49:35Z")
I learned computers back way back when with DOS 3.3, Spinrite, Norton Utilities were king and CHKDSK was completely worthless. I’m pretty sure my hard drive just needs a good tuneup so is there anything out there equivalent to those oldtime utilities in the modern Windows world? ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2009, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cleaning-up-my-hard-drive/510874/2 "2009-09-20T20:54:06Z")
Crap Cleaner is free and does a good job. Now called CCleaner. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2009, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cleaning-up-my-hard-drive/510874/3 "2009-09-20T21:13:24Z")
> [@gonzomax](#): > > Crap Cleaner is free and does a good job. Now called CCleaner. CCleaner is a great tool and is generally safe plus it is free. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2009, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cleaning-up-my-hard-drive/510874/4 "2009-09-20T21:18:27Z")
For many purposes the tools built into Windows are quite adequate. Right click on your hard drive in My Computer, and choose properties. You will see a button marked “Disk Cleanup” and a tab marked “Tools.” From the Tools tab you can both check the disk for errors, and do a defrag. No doubt there are third-party utilities that will do the jobs more thoroughly, but how thorough do you really need? ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2009, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cleaning-up-my-hard-drive/510874/5 "2009-09-20T21:19:25Z")
Will it handle lost chains, bad clusters, dying sectors, etc. like the old NU did or do they not exist in a Window world because I think that’s a lot of my problems too. ---
**Author:** ![Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aji_de_gallina/32/260_2.png) [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aji_de_Gallina)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2009, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cleaning-up-my-hard-drive/510874/6 "2009-09-20T23:26:33Z")
CCleaner and Defraggler (it got me about 20gigs on a 160 drive). Easy Duplicate Finder if your drive is a mess like mine with several instances of videos and pics. ---
**Author:** ![Superhal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Superhal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superhal)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2009, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cleaning-up-my-hard-drive/510874/7 "2009-09-20T23:35:19Z")
chkdsk is still there, but with the features of the old speedisk (that came with norton.) Run it from the command line. Regarding harddisk utilities, now each manufacturer makes one specifically for their harddrives. You go to their website to get it. For cleaning up useless files, disk cleanup (with windows) does a decent job. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2009, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cleaning-up-my-hard-drive/510874/8 "2009-09-20T23:39:18Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > Will it handle lost chains, bad clusters, dying sectors, etc. like the old NU did or do they not exist in a Window world because I think that’s a lot of my problems too. Most modern drives handle the bulk of media level error correction and cluster re-assignment stuff within firmware and unused areas of the drive dedicated to handling media errors. If your drive is to the point that you are dealing with lost chains and bad clusters being reported by diagnostic routines and/or software the drive needs to be replaced ASAP. NTFS formatting used by most modern drives is much less susceptible to fragmentation and the IIRC XP and later OSes have some degree of internal cleanup minimizing the real world need for disk maintenance by the end user. “Disk Cleanup” programs these days mostly clean up the registry and remove programs that did not remove themselves completely when deleted, they do not deal with media level issues, and per the above really don’t have to. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2009, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cleaning-up-my-hard-drive/510874/9 "2009-09-21T05:28:50Z")
Steve Gibson’s Spinrite is still available, and still considered the best for low-level testing to avoid disk problems, or cleanup after problems occur. Many professional computer repair shops use this tool. ---
**Author:** ![HorseloverFat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8e8cbc/32.png) [@HorseloverFat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HorseloverFat)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2009, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cleaning-up-my-hard-drive/510874/10 "2009-09-21T14:34:24Z")
There’s nothing wrong with chkdsk. Id run chkdsk to see if there any bad sectors and to cleanup any bad indexes. Then run a defrag. Without telling more about the symptoms there’s not much else to recommend. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2009, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cleaning-up-my-hard-drive/510874/11 "2009-09-21T17:16:39Z")
I have found [Tune-up Utilities](http://www.tune-up.com/products/tuneup-utilities/) to be quite effective on my computers. It isn’t totally free, but they do let you try it out for a month before you have to pay anything. On the other hand, some computers from the Let’s-Start-Shipping-With-Vista-Even-Though-These-Systems-Are-Too-Small-Era are beset with [Winsxs](http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/winserver2008appcompatabilityandcertification/thread/00335949-c4d9-4f24-a815-e6430ffc8437)[bloat](http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/itprovistasetup/thread/9411dbaa-69ac-43a1-8915-749670cec8c3), I don’t know what you can do about that. ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2009, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cleaning-up-my-hard-drive/510874/12 "2009-09-21T18:31:13Z")
I like [Defraggler](http://www.defraggler.com/), too. It lets you defrag a drive with less free space than Windows’ own defrag option does.