Full-up hard drive!

[South-east boy]

Well, the other night I found that my hard drive was nearly full-up! Thought that was strange as I had moved 2000 photos off to my external hard drive and not added anything else, so wondered what was going on?! In 'My documents' there is 90GB of music in itunes in 'My music', 23GB of photos in 'My photos' and 5.7 GB of videos. I clicked on C drive and found there was 229 GB! I wondered where all this memory was, so had a look. Under 'Documents and settings', 'then Owner', then 'Application data', there is 81.2GB! 26GB of it is in Sonic, which is my CD/DVD copying program. Apple computer had 16.7. All the other programs there were less than 1GB, so not sure where the rest is?!

Now, I also found another 'My documents' which seems to be copying whatever is in my original 'My documents', as the photos I only took off there the other day are not there. So that's another 134GB the same as what's in my original 'My documents'! No wonder my hard-drive is full up! While it might be nice to have a copy of everything, when it uses so much space, it doesn't really help and if anything happens to the hard-drive etc, it won't be any help anyway!


Because it's so full-up, I can't even sync my phone or do a restore from back-up as there is no space on the PC!

Does anyone know what's going on and can advise me what to do please?

Thanks very much!

[joebloggs]

for sonic maybe you've copied dvd's and its made temp images or you've saved images ?

try ccleaner to clean up some junk.http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner

next try a duplicate file finder, and delete files that you have exact duplicates of ( cant find the program i used), but it freed up 80gb out of my 400gb hdd.

[hawk]

i had same thing happen it said 134gig but nearly no thing left so did a disc clean it got rid of old windows and lots of other junk i got back over 70 gig now if it dont need 2 be on comp i get rid or put onto a disc

[Terpe]

............try ccleaner to clean up some junk.http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner.........

Highly recommended and easy to use.
That's from a 'puter newbie

[stevewool]

i have only 30 gig and its always full yet i dont put music or pictures on there i try to keep it clean all the time, so what am i doing wrong

[Terpe]

i have only 30 gig and its always full yet i dont put music or pictures on there i try to keep it clean all the time, so what am i doing wrong

Nothing wrong.
I also keep my hard drive clean and free from 'clutter' whatever archives, music, photo's, movies etc I have are all on separate and different external storage drives as back-up and 2nd back-up the stored in the cloud. Belt and braces I know, but some of this stuff is priceless and irreplaceable. Better safe than sorry.

[stevewool]

i know the feeling , lost a video of the kids when the where very small once, desided to use the tape for the GP a few years ago,my mistake, so just memories in my head now, the kids not the GP

[Terpe]

i know the feeling , lost a video of the kids when the where very small once, desided to use the tape for the GP a few years ago,my mistake, so just memories in my head now, the kids not the GP

Storage is so cheap these days. Amazing just how much you can actually save.

[stevewool]

yep i have a 500gig external harddrive so small fits in your pocket

[South-east boy]

for sonic maybe you've copied dvd's and its made temp images or you've saved images ?

try ccleaner to clean up some junk.http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner

next try a duplicate file finder, and delete files that you have exact duplicates of ( cant find the program i used), but it freed up 80gb out of my 400gb hdd.

Thanks for that, did that and I got 1% extra space. Will be handy for the future. Am doing a scan with Spybot now.

Yeah, that's what I'm thinking about Sonic, but can't see anywhere where it's copied or saved stuff from when I've made CD's or DVD's before? Not sure what Apple computer is? Something to do with itunes maybe?

Still not sure why I have a My Documents twice and how it copies what's in my main one to the copy one?

[joebloggs]

try this http://windirstat.info/

it reads the whole directory tree once and then presents it in three useful views:

The directory list, which resembles the tree view of the Windows Explorer but is sorted by file/subtree size,
The treemap, which shows the whole contents of the directory tree straight away,
The extension list, which serves as a legend and shows statistics about the file types.

you can see what and where the big files are

[imagine]

Thanks for that, did that and I got 1% extra space. Will be handy for the future. Am doing a scan with Spybot now.

Yeah, that's what I'm thinking about Sonic, but can't see anywhere where it's copied or saved stuff from when I've made CD's or DVD's before? Not sure what Apple computer is? Something to do with itunes maybe?

Still not sure why I have a My Documents twice and how it copies what's in my main one to the copy one?

you could try emsisoft free,i highly recomend, no spyware, just as a precaution, if infected there are some worms that duplicate themselves over and over untill your hard drive becomes full ,and your computer eventualy unworkable, im not saying thats what it is but worth trying,

cc cleaner will also wipe clear space too, it will empty your prefectch folder, but i find it doesnt empty it totaly, you can go,from start to my computer, then clic on drive c, look for windows folder, then prefetch folder , open it,inside delete all thats there, there is usualy a single folder at top of the list called ready boot, , i usualy leave that as im not sure it should be deleted but everything else you can delete, they are all temp files left behind, your comp will replace them online as you surf if you need any back, what you get back will be updated ones, it wont effect your comp, but does make for better efficiency,also anything else bad could be hiding there, i do this regular, especialy after playing any games, games equel clutter,

ps,,,, after emptying prefetch folder it all goes in your trash bin, empty that too after prefetch

[joebloggs]

this is what i've used in the past , 15 day free trial
http://www.duplicate-file-detective....load/index.htm
use the strong check sum search and be careful if you delete anything - like any windows or app files.

[Terpe]

try this http://windirstat.info/

it reads the whole directory tree once and then presents it in three useful views:

The directory list, which resembles the tree view of the Windows Explorer but is sorted by file/subtree size,
The treemap, which shows the whole contents of the directory tree straight away,
The extension list, which serves as a legend and shows statistics about the file types.

you can see what and where the big files are

Thankyou joe that looks useful. I bookmarked it

[Terpe]

Thank you Stewart, your stuff is good too.
I learn a lot here. Well I need to.

[imagine]

iv learnt a lot, but im still learning, sometimes i overlook the simplest and look for advise, things change too,so i guess its a lifetime of learning just as it is with everything

[Dedworth]

you could try emsisoft free,i highly recomend, no spyware, just as a precaution, if infected there are some worms that duplicate themselves over and over untill your hard drive becomes full ,and your computer eventualy unworkable, im not saying thats what it is but worth trying,

cc cleaner will also wipe clear space too, it will empty your prefectch folder, but i find it doesnt empty it totaly, you can go,from start to my computer, then clic on drive c, look for windows folder, then prefetch folder , open it,inside delete all thats there, there is usualy a single folder at top of the list called ready boot, , i usualy leave that as im not sure it should be deleted but everything else you can delete, they are all temp files left behind, your comp will replace them online as you surf if you need any back, what you get back will be updated ones, it wont effect your comp, but does make for better efficiency,also anything else bad could be hiding there, i do this regular, especialy after playing any games, games equel clutter,

ps,,,, after emptying prefetch folder it all goes in your trash bin, empty that too after prefetch

Might not be advisable to play with the prefetch folder

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-GB/w...refetch-folder

What is the prefetch folder?

Each time you turn on your computer, Windows keeps track of the way your computer starts and which programs you commonly open. Windows saves this information as a number of small files in the prefetch folder. The next time you turn on your computer, Windows refers to these files to help speed the start process.

The prefetch folder is a subfolder of the Windows system folder. The prefetch folder is self-maintaining, and there's no need to delete it or empty its contents. If you empty the folder, Windows and your programs will take longer to open the next time you turn on your computer.

[imagine]

Might not be advisable to play with the prefetch folder

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-GB/w...refetch-folder

What is the prefetch folder?

Each time you turn on your computer, Windows keeps track of the way your computer starts and which programs you commonly open. Windows saves this information as a number of small files in the prefetch folder. The next time you turn on your computer, Windows refers to these files to help speed the start process.

The prefetch folder is a subfolder of the Windows system folder. The prefetch folder is self-maintaining, and there's no need to delete it or empty its contents. If you empty the folder, Windows and your programs will take longer to open the next time you turn on your computer.

iv been doing it for years, and of cousre the next time you start up it takes just a little longer ,but only that 1st time, those files are soon replaced with new up to date files, you look at those files you will see a lot of rubish from visited sites such as games sites, not a lot unlike cookies,
i took this on from help i recieved years ago from a computer tech engineer, and have always found it beneficial with regard to particulary online game type programs,where after cleanning out the prefetch folder has resulted in increased performance where programs have become slower or slugish

[Ako Si Jamie]

i have only 30 gig and its always full yet i dont put music or pictures on there i try to keep it clean all the time, so what am i doing wrong

All those temporary internet files - usually made up of porn

[imagine]

All those temporary internet files - usually made up of porn

ah so thats why they call them cookies

[imagine]

Does anyone know what's going on and can advise me what to do please?

Thanks very much!

the boss seems pretty well up on puters, maybe he knows a good solution for you,

[mickcant]

If all else fails, be brave do a format and reinstall, only what you want
Make sure you have your discs first though
Mick.

[stevewool]

or buy a new laptop, i must admit mine is nearly 4 years old and likei aid only 30 gig so very small, but it does what i need, yes the letters and numbers are fadding and sometimes stick but it still works so i will keep the money in my bank for a little longer

[lastlid]

I have a Windows 7 laptop just now. Its about a year old. I run Norton 360 on it for antiviral purposes and it also runs an optimisation and cleanup function which keeps things running sweetly. I have never heard of the "pretech file" - not sure why.

One thing I do know is that troubles can happen when a hard drive is full. Makes it hard to run the optimisation and cleanup and defrag functions and if so deleting a large file or two can help in this regard to create some space for such functions to do their job.

I havent come across the duplication of files that you refer to.

[South-east boy]

you could try emsisoft free,i highly recomend, no spyware, just as a precaution, if infected there are some worms that duplicate themselves over and over untill your hard drive becomes full ,and your computer eventualy unworkable, im not saying thats what it is but worth trying,

cc cleaner will also wipe clear space too, it will empty your prefectch folder, but i find it doesnt empty it totaly, you can go,from start to my computer, then clic on drive c, look for windows folder, then prefetch folder , open it,inside delete all thats there, there is usualy a single folder at top of the list called ready boot, , i usualy leave that as im not sure it should be deleted but everything else you can delete, they are all temp files left behind, your comp will replace them online as you surf if you need any back, what you get back will be updated ones, it wont effect your comp, but does make for better efficiency,also anything else bad could be hiding there, i do this regular, especialy after playing any games, games equel clutter,

ps,,,, after emptying prefetch folder it all goes in your trash bin, empty that too after prefetch

The Emisoft looks good as it had found 12 bad trojans & malware etc, but I had left the deep scan going overnight, then it got to 92% done and the PC made a noise, crashed and re-started, so I had to start again and didn't even get to delete the bad stuff! Went to parents for Mothers day, so of course left it going, got home and i had crashed and restarted again!

So not re-started again and just hope that it doesnt do it again.

Can't do a defrag as you need 15% free space and I can't do that as I only have 2% due to the 81GB in Application data and 134GB in the copy of My Documents! The hard drive is 250GB and I have a 1.5TB external hard-drive.

[joebloggs]

I havent come across the duplication of files that you refer to.

because I'm lazy, i copy my sd cards from camera's, mobiles, Nds etc, onto My Pc hard disk b4 i copy them to a usb stick(s) and dvd then wipe them from the Sd card (so with a bit of luck i've got 3 copies) the only problem is knowing which files i've already copied from the sd cards, unless i wipe the sd every time i copy the pics/videos, and many of the pictures have meaningless file names generated by the camera or whatever. so keeping track can be a difficult job, the program i use does a file size, checksum so i know if i have duplicates and can delete them

[lastlid]

Like I was saying, the trick is to create some space in which to do the defrag.....

[lastlid]

I am trying to get my head around what you are telling us. I see you mention iTunes (my least favourite part of Apple)

We had a good cleanup the other week and got rid of a lot of duplication. We have all of our photos stored on our laptop and our iPad. I feel that is duplication enough. Anything else we got rid of from a photo point of view.

[South-east boy]

Well, the Sonic recorder has 26GB, so looks like somehow it's stored whatever I've copied onto discs, but I can see no way to view what's on there and to delete it.

Also, the 134GB copy of My documents, well I could just delete it, but would it copy it again? Don't know how the copy My documents works, but it seems to copy and update whatever I've done in the original My documents.

[South-east boy]

I'm going to blow my top with this PC soon! I'm logged in ebay, click on Sell to list an item, and it takes me to the sign-in page with my other username & password which I don't want to use for that item! Tried it several times!

So I think, ok, I'll click on one of my items for sale in the account I want to use, click sell similar and revise that, but it goes to sign-in again with the password remembered, so I click on sign-in and it flashes & comes up with sign-in again and keeps doing it again & again and won't sign-in! What the hell is going on?!