Hard Drive Space Woes: Barely 2 Gigs Left Out of 136 - What Up With That??!

Hello dear readers, how are you?

I hope someone can help me. I did some searches in the forum but I haven't found the
solutions I'm seeking. If you know where this problem has been already asked about
and answered, please let me know.

I have a 3 year old Dell Inspiron 1525 that started out with 136 gigs. But now, I'm "in
the red" most of the time. The hard drive is almost all filled up. My OS is Vista. I use
an external hard drive most of the time and I run CCleaner & Defraggler regularly.
Firefox is the browser I use and I prefer not to have to clear my history.

These are my burning questions:

How can I find out what is taking up most of the space in my computer? And how can
I make more room so that I always have 10 to 20 gigs free?

It's a total mystery to me why I can't free up enough space on the main hard drive
doing the normal things the average person does to maintain their computer.

You should probably know that although, I would really like to know how computers
actually work, I have not taken the time to learn that yet. So, please keep in mind,
for those of you who try to help me with this, you're pretty much talking to a noob.

However, I am intelligent and a quick learner. And so, I would encourage you to give
it a shot. Don't feel like you have to dumb it down. I'm prepared to do my own
research after I'm given a bit of guidance about where to begin. In fact, I did start by
doing a Google search first. But most of the pages that came up were suggesting
things I'm already doing. Although, one did mention that running System Restore
could be part of the problem.

Somebody please help me.

Thanks for reading.

(Let me know if looking at a copy of my Hijack This Log file would help).

 

I hope you have given enough space for C drive. Let me know the total hard disk space and how much you have alloted for your C drive for windows. Also tell me your processor and size of RAM whether 1GB or 2GB.

 

Hi ken.sweet, thanks for trying to help.

The following are my specs at the moment of writing this:

OS: Vista Home Premium

C drive (OS is in here)
Not compressed
Total size: 136.74 GB
Free Space:1.56 GB

D drive (recovery)
Not compressed
Total size: 9.77 GB
Free Space: 4.05 GB

Processor: Intel(R) Pentium(R) Dual CPU T2330 @ 1.60GHz 1.60 GHz

RAM: 2.50 GB
Total Physical Memory: 2.49 GB
Available Physical Memory: 940 MB (yikes!)
Total Virtual Memory: 5.21 GB
Available Virtual Memory: 3.42 GB

I am also running an external drive:

F drive
Not compressed
Total size: 298.09 GB (I know, I know! I'm a total space hog!!!)
Free Space: 48.27 GB

Is this all you needed for now? Let me know if you need to know more.

If I recall correctly, when we bought this computer, it came with a memory upgrade.
I'll run down to the basement and rummage around to see if I can find the box this
came in. It could be in there. I'll let you know.

Thanks a lot for your time, ken.sweet! I look forward to getting your next reply.

Z

 

Hey, Kerosene. Thanks for your suggestions!

 

RAM 2.50GB first time heard of this. your processor is very old and I guess you have many programs installed. Try running ccleaner to clear up some free space. Will get back to you again.

 

hi again ken.sweet.

Really? wow. OK. I guess 2.5 GB RAM is extinct!

Is this is a problem that can be solved without buying another computer?

I wouldn't think I am guilty of having too many programs installed. My programs file
isn't even 6 gigs. That's about 4% of the capacity of the C drive. Or is that not an
accurate indication of how much space the programs I have installed are actually
occupying?

Looking forward to getting your next reply. (or questions/comments from others)

Later.

 

Try backing your important stuff and then formatting your PC.

 

I cannot understand why your C drive occupying so much space when your program file is only 6gigs. Do you have data in C drive as well? If not tell me what all programs you have installed on c drive.

 

Hi ken.sweet.

OK, here comes my first goober noob response (hope you don't give up on me after
reading this):

Whaddaya mean, do I have data in C drive?

Even after a cursory Internet search to find out what you meant by 'data' in C drive,
I still don't have a clue. I honestly don't know how to answer that question. Isn't it all
data in there?

Worse is, I'm also stumped by your 2nd question. Are you referring only to the
programs inside my programs file?

 

Thanks for your suggestion, nihangshah!

Although, first I'll need to learn how to backup and format. I'll let you know if that's what I end up having to do.

 

First thing I would check is go to add/remove programs and look how many java updates you have in there. For some reason when Java updates it does not remove the old components. Gig's of space can be freed up. Most people only need 2 files - 1) Runtime environment and 2) the latest update.

 

I meant what all programs have you installed? Can you tell me in brief?

 

Hi again ken.sweet. Please pardon my delayed reply. Thanks for your latest.

OK. This is totally embarrassing! I do have quite a few programs installed. So many, in
fact, that I had to take 4 screen shots to include them all - as you can see in the
attachments to this post (at least, I hope I have enough posts by now so my
attachments will be included).

I look forward to your next reply. Thanks in advance!

 

Oops too many programs installed. can you try removing some of the unwanted ones and get some free space? keep 10 gigs free, then ur system will run faster and better.

 

Hey Imabloggernow, Sorry it's taken me this long to respond to your post.

Thanks for the suggestion about Java rubbish. And as you can see from the screen shots I uploaded, there is some Java trash
remaining on my hard drive.

 

OK. Yes. It's a fact. I'm pretty full up with programs. Told you it was embarrassing!

I'll see what I can do about getting rid of the ones I'm not using much. I'll let you know
how that goes. Thanks!

 

Ya get rid of those and let me know.

 

To check where the space is going on my computer I use TreeSize Free. It is worth using an app like that to trawl through and you may see a large waste of space somewhere, e.g. games you have uninstalled but the save games are still there.

You might want to consider just buying an extra hard disk and sticking that in your computer, then you can reinstall apps to that drive and free up space on your main drive. I think you can get 1TB for $100 now.

I would replace divx with vlc.
Do you have any use for RealPlayer??
Remove google earth.
MediaDirect also looks like a good candidate for uninstallation.
You have a bunch of HP software installed, I would remove all but the drivers.
Considering that you have Microsoft office installed, do you really need open office, it is taking up 392MB.
Did you mean to install Safari, if not I would remove it.
Remove all system restore point barring the last one.

 

OK. Alright. I'll do it! But I'm totally resistant for some reason. I know I have hoarder
tendencies. So, I'm rather leaning towards taking goldensun's advice to see if that will
work first before I go removing a bunch of programs I never use. LOL.

Bear with me. I need to work through this. Stay tuned. K?