OK… I have 18.6gb of total useable space on my hard drive. I been having problems recently where I get low on hard drive space (!), i get an error message saying I’m below 600mb or so. I went through and deleted all the old programs I don’t use anymore. I went through Add/Remove Programs and deleted everything I don’t need. I deleted all the unneeded folders in Program Files, temp, windows, etc. I have nothing I don’t need on my harddrive, which I have estimated to be ~5gb worth of stuff. So… my question is, where is the other 13gb?!
I’m not sure I understand you. You’ve got an 18.6 GB drive that was almost full and you deleted about 5 GB worth of data. If I understand you right, you now have roughly 5 GB free, and the rest is being used by files, be they programs, data, images and what have you. So what is the question?
Just to clarify, I have deleted everything I don’t need, but only have 700mb free hard drive space. There’s no way in hell the few things I have left installed add up to 18gb. Is there some hidden stuff that is eating up all my space, or what?
Do you have Norton Utilities installed, by any chance? If so, it may be the Norton Protected Recycle Bin. I know that it has caused me problems in the past. Windows Explorer reported a large amount of free space, but when I tried to install something, I was warned that I was running low on space.
If you want a nice, visual way of seeing what is taking up the space on your harddrive, try the freeware program SpaceMonger. I’ve used it may times to track down where all my free space went.
Defragging moves files, it doesn’t delete anything. You will never get more space by running defrag.
Download the trial version of DiskState. I’ve found it a lot easier to use than SpaceMonger or any of the other utilities that try to show you your entire drive at once.
This d00d has an app called “Scanner” that shows the total size of all your directories in pie chart fashion. Helped me find directories that turned out to have huge stuff in them several levels deep.
This is a bit tedious, but it works well for finding out where your disk space is being used.
Open Windows Explorer and go to the root. Select a directory and then hit alt-enter. Will bring up the drive space and number of files for that directory.
Repeat for each of the main directories. It may helpt to write things down as you go.
Then go back to the top, and start opening up the major directories (Documents and Settings, Progeam Files, etc…). Repeat this process, but instead of clicking on each directory, grab five or ten directories at a time. You should be getting an idea of where your data is collecting.
If you find any groups that seem WAY bigger than they should (such as Temporary Internet Files, or something), it could be worth researching to see why exactly it is taking so much space.
Also, keep in mind that windows will collect DLL files for many programs that you install. Even if you run the uninstall for the program, there may be a copy left in the Windows System directory that it was afraid to remove. These are difficult to remove, and can cause many, many headaches. Be very carefull if you decide to touch these buggers at all.
See the Langa List for detailed info on removing lots of unneeded files to free up space on your hard drive.
Or, you can buy a 2nd hard drive. One about double the size you have (40Gb) runs about $65-$75 these days.
Deleted (shift+delete) or moved to the recycle bin? Moving to the recycle bin doesn’t free up any space at all. As has been suggested before, empty the recycle bin.
