Hard disk almost full, yet I've removed just about everything!!

Florio

Member
About a year ago I bought a new laptop with Windows 7 as its OS, and I gave the old one, which has Vista Home Premium, to my 8-year-old son. I created a separate account for him so that I could exercise 'parental control', but removed just about everything from my account--documents, programmes etc.

My son just uses the computer for games, but as they have seemed to be running very slowly of late, I just did a check for viruses, software conflicts and so on. What I have discovered is that the hard disk, which has a capacity of about 70.2Gb is virtually full (68.8 Gb utilised) and there is only 1.46 Gb of free space. This seems unbelievable seeing as the programmes and games installed amount to a mere 20.1 Gb, and there is very little else on the PC.:shock:

I've tried defragmenting and disc cleaning, but I cannot really remove much else since the remaining software is Acer, Microsoft or flash players etc, necessary for the functioning of the games my son uses. Surely this shouldn't be necessary anyway if the software only occupies around 20 Gb.:sa:

Any ideas as to why the disk is virtually choc-a-block, and how I can put things right??
 

My Computer

Make a full anti virus scan, download and make a full scan with malwarebytes.

then test the HDusing maker's diag/repair full CD scan: Hard Drive Diagnostics Tools andUtilities (Storage) - TACKtech Corp.

Lets test the hard drive. Back up all your stuff first, in case its ready to die.
If that is test is negative. Download windirstat and lets see whats on the drive

I think that we will discover, that the HD is full, due to restore points and other backups, but lets be sure.

This may help, too
http://www.mydigitallife.info/how-to...pace-in-vista/

for Seven and Vista
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/129976-hard-disk-space-free-up-recover.html?ltr=H
 

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    Dell XPS420
    Memory
    6 gig
    Graphics card(s)
    ATI Radeon HD3650 256 MB
    Sound Card
    Intergrated 7.1 Channel Audio
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Dell SP2009W 20 inch Flat Panel w Webcam
    Hard Drives
    640 gb
    Cooling
    Fan
    Mouse
    Dell USB 4 button optical
    Keyboard
    Dell USB
    Other Info
    DSL provided by ATT
Check if these games are backing themselves up. I had a similar 'shock' yesterday and then after investigating found that my Blu-Ray burning software wasn't deleting its temporary files despite its settings.
 

My Computer

System One

  • Operating System
    Win 10 Pro x64 x 2
    Manufacturer/Model
    Alienware ALX x58
    CPU
    Intel® Core™ i7-975 Extreme O/C to 4.02 GHz, 8MB Cache
    Motherboard
    Asus® P6T Deluxe V2 X58 LGA1366
    Memory
    24GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3 SDRAM at 1600MHz - 6 x 4096MB
    Graphics card(s)
    1792 MB NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 295 Dual Core
    Sound Card
    Onboard Soundmax® High-Definition 7.1 Performance Audio
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Samsung XL2370 HD LED backlit 23" W/S 2ms response time
    Screen Resolution
    1920 x 1080
    Hard Drives
    2 x 500gb SATA II 1 x 1TB SATA II 1 external eSATA LaCie 3TB (Non-RAID)
    PSU
    Alienware® 1200 Watt Multi-GPU
    Case
    Unique
    Cooling
    4 case fans @ CPU water cooling.
    Internet Speed
    1gb/s up and down
Thanks for your feedback.

@richc46, unfortunately Acer is not included amongst the makers on the Tacktech corp site.

I'm running a malware scan now, and have run the antivirus; nothing so far.

I have already got rid of old restore points.

I will now check out the other links you've provided. If you think of anything else, I'd be interested to hear...:(
 

My Computer

Yes go to the website of your HD manufacturer for the HD test

I would always have at least one System Restore point, when needed they are more valuable than Gold
 

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    Dell XPS420
    Memory
    6 gig
    Graphics card(s)
    ATI Radeon HD3650 256 MB
    Sound Card
    Intergrated 7.1 Channel Audio
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Dell SP2009W 20 inch Flat Panel w Webcam
    Hard Drives
    640 gb
    Cooling
    Fan
    Mouse
    Dell USB 4 button optical
    Keyboard
    Dell USB
    Other Info
    DSL provided by ATT
Do a scan using Malwarebytes Free also...excellent for all kinds of malware that escapes regular virus scanners. Update before running.
 

My Computer

System One

  • Operating System
    Win 10 Pro x64 x 2
    Manufacturer/Model
    Alienware ALX x58
    CPU
    Intel® Core™ i7-975 Extreme O/C to 4.02 GHz, 8MB Cache
    Motherboard
    Asus® P6T Deluxe V2 X58 LGA1366
    Memory
    24GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3 SDRAM at 1600MHz - 6 x 4096MB
    Graphics card(s)
    1792 MB NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 295 Dual Core
    Sound Card
    Onboard Soundmax® High-Definition 7.1 Performance Audio
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Samsung XL2370 HD LED backlit 23" W/S 2ms response time
    Screen Resolution
    1920 x 1080
    Hard Drives
    2 x 500gb SATA II 1 x 1TB SATA II 1 external eSATA LaCie 3TB (Non-RAID)
    PSU
    Alienware® 1200 Watt Multi-GPU
    Case
    Unique
    Cooling
    4 case fans @ CPU water cooling.
    Internet Speed
    1gb/s up and down
Make a full anti virus scan, download and make a full scan with malwarebytes.

then test the HDusing maker's diag/repair full CD scan: Hard Drive Diagnostics Tools andUtilities (Storage) - TACKtech Corp.

Lets test the hard drive. Back up all your stuff first, in case its ready to die.
If that is test is negative. Download windirstat and lets see whats on the drive

I think that we will discover, that the HD is full, due to restore points and other backups, but lets be sure.

This may help, too
http://www.mydigitallife.info/how-to...pace-in-vista/

for Seven and Vista
[URL="http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/129976-hard-disk-space-free-up-recover.html?ltr=H"]http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/129976-hard-disk-space-free-up-recover.html?ltr=H[/URL]

Agreed
 

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    Dell XPS420
    Memory
    6 gig
    Graphics card(s)
    ATI Radeon HD3650 256 MB
    Sound Card
    Intergrated 7.1 Channel Audio
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Dell SP2009W 20 inch Flat Panel w Webcam
    Hard Drives
    640 gb
    Cooling
    Fan
    Mouse
    Dell USB 4 button optical
    Keyboard
    Dell USB
    Other Info
    DSL provided by ATT
Well, the various scans I've carried out show no signs of malware or viruses. I've done various other things to free up more space, including removing .bak and .tmp files, getting rid of restore points, running chkdsk/f and using the Vista System Junk Cleaner tool. All in all I've managed to obtain about 1 Gb of extra disc space.
This is quite good, but I still cannot understand why the HD is about 95% full when there should be about another 40 Gb of space available.
 

My Computer

Download windirstat as suggested

and

Go to the website of HD manufacturer and test the Hard Drive
 

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    Dell XPS420
    Memory
    6 gig
    Graphics card(s)
    ATI Radeon HD3650 256 MB
    Sound Card
    Intergrated 7.1 Channel Audio
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Dell SP2009W 20 inch Flat Panel w Webcam
    Hard Drives
    640 gb
    Cooling
    Fan
    Mouse
    Dell USB 4 button optical
    Keyboard
    Dell USB
    Other Info
    DSL provided by ATT
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