Conficker fried my 'Dell.

[Pacoman]

My daughter loaded that conficker to a XP 'DELL'. I cleaned it out with
various removal software and reloaded Windows XP Professional. The problem
now is that I 'only' have XP loaded on to a 2 gig hard drive and I only have
@ 124 mb of free space left...there obviously is lots of hidden files and
folders; how do I get rid of them. I have tried all the disc cleanup and
defragment routines with no luck...HELP!

 

[Big_Al]

Pacoman said this on 4/2/2009 4:14 PM:

My daughter loaded that conficker to a XP 'DELL'. I cleaned it out with
various removal software and reloaded Windows XP Professional. The problem
now is that I 'only' have XP loaded on to a 2 gig hard drive and I only have
@ 124 mb of free space left...there obviously is lots of hidden files and
folders; how do I get rid of them. I have tried all the disc cleanup and
defragment routines with no luck...HELP!

As cheap as drives are, you should have taken the time to put in a new
drive and install to that. 40 gig drives are so cheap.

On a virgin load of a system, I don't think you're going to get much off
of it.

If you had a XP Gold, XP SP1 or even XP SP2 CD and then did all the
service pack and updates, those can be messy. You could have taken
your XP CD and slipstream it up to SP3 level, even with DELL Drivers,
and then when you reload the PC you have nothing to upgrade but the
patches applied post SP3. Would be a lot less 'trash' on the computer.

 

[nass]

My daughter loaded that conficker to a XP 'DELL'. I cleaned it out with
various removal software and reloaded Windows XP Professional. The problem
now is that I 'only' have XP loaded on to a 2 gig hard drive and I only have
@ 124 mb of free space left...there obviously is lots of hidden files and
folders; how do I get rid of them. I have tried all the disc cleanup and
defragment routines with no luck...HELP!

When you saying reloaded, do you mean clean install or repair?
Conficker is a new comer which can cause lots of trouble to your machine.
Such corrupt file, corrupt boot sectors/clusters..etc.

Try to perform a clean install which involves deleting all partitions and
creatimng new ones then a complete formate.

If the HDD completely damaged and rendered useless by the virus try to
contact DELL Help & Support to give you the right Hard drive, make sure to
get your machine Number and the hard drive number ready to hand it to give
you the right hdd to reinstall the Operating system.

Install Windows XP
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/setup/winxp/install.mspx

Get secure with up2date antivirus and antimalware software:
install the free trial of Windows Live OneCare
http://onecare.live.com/standard/en-gb/default.htm
http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/safety/technologies/onecare/default.mspx
Windows Defender detects and removes spyware
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/defender/default.mspx

http://www.avast.com
http://www.bitdefender.co.uk/site/Downloads/

HTH,
nass

 

[Daave]

Your post is unclear. Further comments inline.

My daughter loaded that conficker to a XP 'DELL'. I cleaned it out
with
various removal software and reloaded Windows XP Professional.

If you cleaned it out, why would you "reload" XP? That doesn't make
sense. Or did you format the drive and start from scratch because you
were unable to remove the worm? What programs did you use to remove the
software? Did you perform a Repair Install, Clean Install, or Parallel
Install of Windows XP Pro? Or did you use some kind of System
Restoration or Recovery routine (either from a disk or your hard drive's
hidden partition)? What is your Dell's model and model number?

The problem
now is that I 'only' have XP loaded on to a 2 gig hard drive

Typo? Do you perhaps mean 20 GB hard drive?

"Only"? That implies a Clean Install or its equivalent. Hopefully all
your important files were backed up before your daughter let the worm do
its thing.

and I only have
@ 124 mb of free space left...there obviously is lots of hidden files
and
folders; how do I get rid of them. I have tried all the disc cleanup
and
defragment routines with no luck...HELP!

Answer the other questions first because first we need to determine what
exactly you have on your hard drive!

Regardless, even if your hard drive is 20 GB, you really should purchase
a new one; they're fairly inexpensive.