Low Disk space on C drive

  • Thread starter Thread starter carolyn
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carolyn

I continue to lose disk space it seems like every day on my C Drive. I have
done all of the instructions on some of the other postings - cleaned out temp
files, set system restore to minimal, ran CC Cleaner, ran disk cleaner, all
files created, ran virus, adware etc.. Documents and settings are going to my
larger D drive, but I still cannot see much of a difference. I have 13GB on
C drive with on 2.44GB left. D has plenty over 120GB and all my photos and
music etc.. is on the D drive. Most all of the programs that I could load to
D drive I have except for my printer which supposedly has to be on the C
drive.

I ran a search to see if there are dup files and there are quite a few files
that are the same size, but I don't know if they can be deleted, it seems
some of them are in different folders. In addition my pagefile.sys, by far
the largest file is 786,432KB.

I am not very savvy on the computer but need some step by step advice as to
how to gain more disk space - I tried downloading Sequoia View but didn't
understand it once I tried to run it, so I removed it.

Help :)
 
carolyn said:
I continue to lose disk space it seems like every day on my C Drive. I have
done all of the instructions on some of the other postings - cleaned out temp
files, set system restore to minimal, ran CC Cleaner, ran disk cleaner, all
files created, ran virus, adware etc.. Documents and settings are going to my
larger D drive, but I still cannot see much of a difference. I have 13GB on
C drive with on 2.44GB left. D has plenty over 120GB and all my photos and
music etc.. is on the D drive. Most all of the programs that I could load to
D drive I have except for my printer which supposedly has to be on the C
drive.

I ran a search to see if there are dup files and there are quite a few files
that are the same size, but I don't know if they can be deleted, it seems
some of them are in different folders. In addition my pagefile.sys, by far
the largest file is 786,432KB.

I am not very savvy on the computer but need some step by step advice as to
how to gain more disk space - I tried downloading Sequoia View but didn't
understand it once I tried to run it, so I removed it.

Help :)
Click to expand...
Have you tried this program. Its free, but it will help show you where
and what folders are consuming the disk space.
Treesize http://www.jam-software.com/freeware/index.shtml

You've got the right idea, but you must have forgotten something.
Yet when I reloaded my PC, it took about 8 gig, I got it down to maybe
7+ but that was a virgin load. No years of log files, backups or MS
update downloads etc. So 13 gigs is a bit small in my opinion, but
that's just my thought. I'd not run on less than 20 gigs.
 
Even if you install Programs to D they will still install some items to C
The pagefile is your windows swap file and its size is managed by Win
Dont touch duplicated files, unless you know exactly what you are doing.
In Internet Options you can amend Internet Settings to 50mb
You currently have sufficient free space on C, 15% is the reccommended
minimum
13gb is a somewhat small size for a win disk, are you sure you have two
disks & not a single disk split into two partitions?
 
Ok I ran the jam software and it looks by far my Windows is gigantic,
followed by System 32 and then several others like Service Pakr filed I386,
PCHealth, which I have no idea what that is. Also my Documents and Settings
has a large amount of Application Data as do each of my users under local
settings. I can see where everything is now, but I don't know what I can get
rid of without doing damage. Any more advice? Thanks by the way
 
My internet setting is at 50mb, I'm not sure about the partition part - All I
know is I have C drive 13GB and D drive 130GB- how would find out if it is
just a partition of a single drive? Thanks
 
carolyn said:
Ok I ran the jam software and it looks by far my Windows is gigantic,
followed by System 32 and then several others like Service Pakr filed I386,
PCHealth, which I have no idea what that is. Also my Documents and Settings
has a large amount of Application Data as do each of my users under local
settings. I can see where everything is now, but I don't know what I can get
rid of without doing damage. Any more advice? Thanks by the way
Click to expand...
Here are some stats from my PC. See how this compares.
These are only the top few folders of each windows / mydocs.
If you have SP2 and a lot of updates there are a lot of
$NtUninstallKB##### folders. They could be a cause of space and you
could remove them. (copy to CD). But they are not very large.
SP3 on my system is 440 meg. Thats the 4th entry in windows.
If you remove any of these, you will not be able to uninstall the KB
item or service pack.

If yours are in line with mine, then you just have a well used machine
and I'd look at getting a bit more drive. DL should give you more
ideas how to determine the drives you have.


Full Path Size
C: 20,141.3 MB
C:\System Volume Information 10,489.9 MB
C:\WINDOWS 3,640.6 MB
C:\WINDOWS\system32 999.8 MB
C:\WINDOWS\ServicePackFiles 564.1 MB
C:\WINDOWS\$NtServicePackUninstall$ 440.7 MB
C:\WINDOWS\Installer 373.3 MB
C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET 198.1 MB
C:\WINDOWS\assembly 196.9 MB
C:\WINDOWS\ehome 161.4 MB
C:\WINDOWS\Driver Cache 96.2 MB
C:\WINDOWS\SoftwareDistribution 58.9 MB
C:\WINDOWS\$hf_mig$ 55.8 MB
C:\WINDOWS\inf 55.5 MB
C:\WINDOWS\Help 49.2 MB
C:\WINDOWS\$NtUninstallKB900325$ 41.7 MB
C:\WINDOWS\ie7updates 41.1 MB
C:\WINDOWS\pchealth 34.0 MB
C:\WINDOWS\RegisteredPackages 32.6 MB
C:\WINDOWS\WinSxS 30.1 MB
C:\WINDOWS\Fonts 22.8 MB
C:\WINDOWS\ie7 20.6 MB
C:\WINDOWS\Internet Logs 19.8 MB
C:\WINDOWS\$NtUninstallKB899337$ 3.0 MB
C:\Documents and Settings\Alan\Application Data 150.7 MB
C:\Documents and Settings\Alan\Local Settings 132.5 MB
C:\Documents and Settings\Alan\*.* 3.3 MB
C:\Documents and Settings\Alan\Start Menu 0.3 MB
 
You'll probably find in your Windows folder that you have a bunch of folders
with names like this: $NtUninstallKB921503$ These folders contain the
uninstall files for various system updates you have made. If you are not
having any problems with your system and do not want to remove any updates,
you can delete those folders. Highlight the first uninstall folder, hold
down the shift key and highlight the last uninstall folder, right click the
folders and select properties. That will show you how much space you can
gain by deleting the folders.

Right click My Computer, Properties, Hardware tab, Device manager button,
expand Disk Drives. If you have only one hard drive listed, you can resize
the C: and D: partitions and gain more room that way. Get someone who is
computer savvy to download this partitioning program, free to use for 30
days: BootIt Next Generation, available from:
http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/bootitng.html
 
(1) You could ask XP to move your pagefile. (Do not attempt to use cut and
paste to move it!)

Instead, go to MyComputer, properties, advanced, performance settings,
advanced, virtual memory change. This should display all internal hard
drive partitions and the amount of pagefile on each, if any. Set the size
of the pagefile of C: to zero and that on D: to whatever you want, but 1Gig
or so is probably a good size, and D:\ sounds like it has space. Set the
min and the max pagefile to the same size. This will help prevent
fragmentation of the pagefile.

You will need to reboot to have these changes take effect.

(2) By default XP saves restore points, and that can be a good thing.
However, you could limit the space it uses for restore points.

Start, help and support, system restore, system restore settings. Select a
drive, such as C:. Then click settings. Pick the percent of that drive to
be used for system restore. I think that the default is 10%.

Note that you do not need system restore on non-system partitions, such as
your D:\ drive. The above steps will also provide you with an option to
turn off system restore. Just be sure to only do that on D:, not on C:, and
not on all drives. This will not help C:, but it might save some space on
D:.

(3) If all else fails, you could solve the space problem on C: by getting a
larger hard drive. Most PC shops that sell drives will also install them
and clone files from old to new. In the case of C:, they would also make
sure that the PC boots successfully. Depending on the age of the PC you
might need to restrict yourself to drives no larger than 127 Gig, even if
you have SP-2 or higher for XP. Hard drives of this size are fairly cheap;
also look for sales.
 
carolyn said:
I'm not sure about the partition part - All I know is I have C
drive 13GB and D drive 130GB- how would find out if it is
just a partition of a single drive?
Click to expand...

Right-click My Computer and select Manage. Under Strorage, Click Disk
Management. What do you see?
 
OK here is what I got that stands out from yours:
C: Windows 6263 MB
C: Windows\Installer 1389 MB
C: Windows\$hf_Mig$ 386MB
C: Windows\Pchealth 336MB
C: Windows\Fonts 116MB
C: Documents and Settings \all users 1148MB
C: Documents and Settings\Carolyn\Local Settings 460MB
C: Documents and Settings\Carolyn\Application Data 452MB

ANy ideas why some of these are so much higher than yours? Thanks CB
 
I will try moving the pagefile since this is the largest. I dont have system
restore set on D and only have 5% on C. I still think there is probably a
lot of files that I probably don't need, but don't know if I need them or not
- I have all documents and settings stuff going to D drive and moved the
exisitng that was on the C to the D, but still under documents and settings
there is a large amount of Application Data (which I have no idea what this
is) or if it can be moved to the D drive as well?
 
carolyn said:
OK here is what I got that stands out from yours:
C: Windows 6263 MB
C: Windows\Installer 1389 MB
C: Windows\$hf_Mig$ 386MB
C: Windows\Pchealth 336MB
C: Windows\Fonts 116MB
C: Documents and Settings \all users 1148MB
C: Documents and Settings\Carolyn\Local Settings 460MB
C: Documents and Settings\Carolyn\Application Data 452MB

ANy ideas why some of these are so much higher than yours? Thanks CB
Click to expand...

You probably have a lot of fonts installed. But that won't save much.
This really takes detective work on your part. Mostly since I'm not
sure what you do on the PC or have installed.
I don't have C:\windows\installer, so that's a question.
My C:\Documents and Settings\Alan\Local Settings\Temporary Internet
Files folder contains IE cache and that can grow. You can move it if
you use IE to your D: drive by Tools|options|browsing history|settings.
The application Data folder is where applications put data. Now granted
some of it is temp and can be deleted, but you have to play detective.
Either search on each product web site or just rational logic.

With that treesize program you can drill down further and further to see
the offensive folders.

I still personally think you are pushing the limit of 13gigs for the OS.
Especially since things like this show you have a lot installed. 6 gigs
for Windows is high. I only have 3.5 It just seems you have a well
used system. See what the other responses do for you. Sorry I can't
be more definitive.
 
You have only one physical drive split up into two partitions. Your
primary partition (C:), which contatins the operating system, is way too
small. Follow Ron's advice (use BootIt Next Generation or a similar
program) and you won't need to be worry about being low on disk space!
 
Don't move your pagefile unless you have a second *physical* drive. Just
repartion your existing drive, as Ron advised.

And don't worry about deleting the files you mentioned. There's a chance
you may delete something crucial to the system!
 
Yup, that's Sony for you. :( Do you know if the BootIT program requires the
original XP Disc? As you are probably aware Sony doesn't include this when
you buy the computer. Thanks for all your help. CB
 
I continue to lose disk space it seems like every day on my C Drive. I have
done all of the instructions on some of the other postings - cleaned out temp
files, set system restore to minimal, ran CC Cleaner, ran disk cleaner, all
files created, ran virus, adware etc.. Documents and settings are going to my
larger D drive, but I still cannot see much of a difference. I have 13GB on
C drive with on 2.44GB left. D has plenty over 120GB and all my photos and
music etc.. is on the D drive. Most all of the programs that I could load to
D drive I have except for my printer which supposedly has to be on the C
drive.

I ran a search to see if there are dup files and there are quite a few files
that are the same size, but I don't know if they can be deleted, it seems
some of them are in different folders. In addition my pagefile.sys, by far
the largest file is 786,432KB.

I am not very savvy on the computer but need some step by step advice as to
how to gain more disk space - I tried downloading Sequoia View but didn't
understand it once I tried to run it, so I removed it.

Help :)
Click to expand...


For the purpose of recovering space on your C: Drive, you should change the
Location of the Paging File. I can take as much as 2 GB on the partition where
you should only have the Operating System.

To change Paging File Location. As the Administrator, right click My Computer.
In System Properties click Advanced. Click Performance Settings. In Performance
Options click Advanced/Change

Now you can change C:to 500Mb and you must then allow a partition preferably on
another disk to carry a Paging file of about 2GB ie 2000MB.
In my case I recovered the 2GB on C: drive which made the machine run a lot
faster.

B|rge in sunny Perth, Australia
 
carolyn said:
Yup, that's Sony for you. :( Do you know if the BootIT program
requires the
original XP Disc? As you are probably aware Sony doesn't include this
when
you buy the computer. Thanks for all your help. CB
Click to expand...

YW.

If Sony didn't include a full XP installation disk with your PC, then
they either gave you a recovery disk or set aside a portion of the hard
drive (a hidden partition) that allows you to restore your PC to its
original state (including all the trial software, etc.). If the latter,
Sony provided you instructions to create your own restore disk.

Also, as long as you have access to the I386 folder, you should be able
to create your own XP installation disk, which is useful to have not
only to perform a clean install, but also to perform a repair install
(which keeps your data intact). Instructions may be found here:

http://www.howtohaven.com/system/createwindowssetupdisk.shtml

I doubt BootIt requires an installation disk. Alternative repartitioning
programs include Rainish Partition Manager and GParted:

http://www.ranish.com/part/
http://gparted.sourceforge.net/
 
Carolyn

More suggestions.

A default setting which could be wasteful is that for temporary internet
files, especially if you do not store offline copies on disk. The
default allocation is 3% of drive. Depending on your attitude to offline
copies you could reduce this to 1% or 2%. In Internet Explorer select
Tools, Internet Options, General, Temporary Internet Files, Settings to
make the change. At the same time look at the number of days history is
held.

The default allocation for the Recycle Bin is 10 % of drive. Change to
5%, which should be sufficient. In Windows Explorer place the cursor
on your Recycle Bin, right click and select Properties, Global and
move the slider from 10% to 5%. However, try to avoid letting it get
too full as if it is full and you delete a file by mistake it will
bypass the Recycle Bin and be gone for ever.

If your drive is formatted as NTFS another potential gain arises with
your operating system on your C drive. In the Windows Directory of
your C partition you will have some Uninstall folders in your Windows
folder typically: $NtServicePackUninstall$ and $NtUninstallKB282010$
etc. These files may be compressed or not compressed. If compressed
the text of the folder name appears in blue characters. If not
compressed you can compress them. Right click on each folder and
select Properties, General, Advanced and check the box before Compress
contents to save Disk Space. On the General Tab you can see the amount
gained by deducting the size on disk from the size. Folder
compression is only an option on a NTFS formatted drive / partition.

Select Start, All Programs, Accessories, System Tools, System
Information, Tools, Dr Watson and verify that the box before "Append to
existing log" is NOT checked. This means the next time the log is
written it will overwrite rather than add to the existing file.

The default maximum size setting for Event Viewer logs is too large.
Reset the maximum for each log from 512 kb to 128 kb and set it to
overwrite.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308427/en-us

You can generate more space in the system partition by relocation of
folders.

For Temporary Internet Files select Start, Control Panel, Internet
Options, Temporary Internet Files. Settings, Move Folder.

To move the Outlook Express Store Folder select in Outlook Express
Tools, Options, Maintenance, Store Folder, Change.
http://www.tomsterdam.com/insideoe/files/store.htm

How to Change the Default Location of the My Documents Folder:
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=310147

You may also need to change Default File locations in the Microsoft
Office programmes you choose to move the My Documents folder. For Word
go to Tools, Options, File Locations, highlight Documents, click on
Modify and change file path. For Excel go to Tools, Options, General
and change default file path.

My Documents is one of a number of system created Special Folders
including My Pictures and My Music. These can more easily be relocated
using Tweak Ui. Download TweakUI, one of the MS powertoys, from here:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/downloads/powertoys.asp

In TweakUi select My Computer, Special Folders. You can scroll down to
see the full list of Special Folders to the left of the Change
Location button.


--



Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
Carolyn

Is this before or after installing the SP3 update?

Some of your figures are high. Some corresponding figures here:

C: Windows 4.07 gb

C: Windows\Installer 298 mb
The mix and number of programmes installed will be the factor. Mine
includes Office 2000. If you have Office 2007 this most likely would
result in a significant increase. Newer programmes inevitably are
"bloated".

C: Windows\Pchealth 30 mb
Newer and more voluminous Help files?

C: Documents and Settings \all users 327 mb
The mix and number of programmes installed will be the factor.

C: Documents and Settings\Carolyn\Local Settings 1.14 gb
I use Outlook Express and have large mail and newsgroup archives, which
is most likely why my folder is so much larger. The Outlook Express
Store folder can be moved to another partition.

C: Documents and Settings\Carolyn\Application Data 25.9 mb
The mix and number of programmes installed will be the factor.

You might want to search for files with a "*.log" file extension. Users
often forget to stop logging and files can grow to enormous size. Done
that been there <G>.

--



Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
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