Mr Rhode Island Red Posted August 4, 2013 Share Posted August 4, 2013 Oh my, a computer question on a chicken-keeping forum... Hi, I have a ~7 year old Acer Hardrive running windows Vista. With age it has gotten clogged up, and the C: drive(70GB) has only about 3GB of space left. I am annoyed, because only 20GB of space is taken up by media (Pictures, Videos, Music) and I have no idea as to what is taking up all the other space (about 50GB). I have googled methods to free up space but to little avail. I did a disk cleanup, which only freed up about 3GB and emptied the %temp% folder, which freed up about 5GB. I read about a "disk defragmentation" and asked the local computer store about it, but they said it would only free up about 8GB {is that true? } and that considering the fact that the computer has never been defragmentated before, he said the process could take up to 36 hours I have noticed another partition of my hardrive, the DATA D: drive, it can hold a further 70GB and is virtually empty. A few questions for the more tech-knowledgeable omleteers: Should I go ahead with a disk defragmentation? How much will it free up? Will it take a very long time? Will any of my valuable files be touched (photos etc.) Can I use this DATA drive for storing stuff on my computer? An extra 70gigs would certainly sort out the problem. Or should I just pack it in and consider a new hardrive? THanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ain't Nobody Here Posted August 4, 2013 Share Posted August 4, 2013 As far as I know, a D: drive is usually put there by the manufacturer in case you need to do a system recovery. It seems there are differing opinions whether you should use it to store files. I've no experience so can't really advise you, sorry! Have you uninstalled any programmes you no longer use? That can free up a lot of space. I also use a free programme called CCleaner which will clear out a lot of unnecessary files. Defragging is a very simple procedure - it rearranges all your data so it can all be retrieved more quickly and can speed things up a little. I'm not sure it gives you much more space. I can't imagine it would take that long to complete, I'd say more like a couple of hours tops. You could leave it running overnight in case it does take longer? It's totally safe and I'm pretty sure can be reversed in any case. I'm all for wiping PCs and starting again when they get in that state, to be honest. I use a small independent computer shop which will wipe a PC and reinstall Windows for £45. You do have to then get everything you need reinstalled and setup though which is fine if you're comfortable doing it yourself. You could buy an external hard drive to store your media files on (we keep all our photos on one). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Geoid Posted August 4, 2013 Share Posted August 4, 2013 (edited) You should defragment regularly, so try and run the defragment overnight, should free up some space. The D drive is fine to use. It's just a partition of your hard drive, which means the manufacturer has digitally split the disk in 2, the computer sees it as 2 disks, even though there is only one. You can merge the 2 partitions together, but it is a bit complicated. Edited August 5, 2013 by Guest Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kissinuk Posted August 4, 2013 Share Posted August 4, 2013 Defrag doesn't free up space, it reorganises the physical location of files on your disk to improve disk speed. I agree with the tip above of using ccleaner, you'll be surprised at what it finds and removes. If that doesn't work download JDiskReport from the jgoodies site, this will give you a pie chart that you can drill down to see what is using up the space. As for the D drive, there's no problem using this, I'd defintely use it for media files. I would however back up any files you want to keep to an external drive though. As its likely to be the same actual disk as your C drive, if one goes they both will. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WitchHazel Posted August 5, 2013 Share Posted August 5, 2013 In addition to the excellent advice above, make sure you empty your trash can (or Recycle Bin, can't remember what it's called in Vista). When you delete things, they go into the trash can - but they aren't really deleted and so still take up space. Find the trash can/Recycle bin, right mouse click, and choose the "Empty.." option. Ideally do this before you defrag the disk. Hope that helps Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr Rhode Island Red Posted August 7, 2013 Author Share Posted August 7, 2013 Well, I used Ccleaner and ran a defrag using defraggler and freed up 12GB and generally made the puter more...zippy. Thanks for all your advice Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
