WinVista Laptop Disk Overloaded

Hi,

I have an old WinVista laptop with a 40Gb C: drive and a 40 Gb D: drive. The C: drive is full but for about 650Mb of space. I have not added a program or file to the drive in over a year because the disk was filling up. I moved all of my data files to the D: drive. There are not any programs that I can uninstall from the C: drive (do not want to lose them and they would not free up that much space, anyway.) Up until I recently, I could use Windows Disk Clean Up and by removing all files it found plus all but the most recent System Restore file, it would typically free up 3-4Gb which would last for a week or more. Now, however, it does not clear up more than 300Mb and I am doing it daily. About the only change being made to the laptop are Windows updates, as far as I can tell. I have Kaspersky antivirus and run it religiously, so I do not believe that I have malware.

So, my question is whether there is a better, more powerful tool to clean up my disk and make more space? Or do you have any other suggestions as to how I can solve this issue?

 

This disk clean up is small because your doing it everyday lol, maybe try a disk defrag. Maybe go buy a 16 or 32GB thumb drive or a portable external hard drive and store all your photos music movies and documents on it. Or upgrade the internal hard drives. If money is an issue maybe consider installing a free Linux operating system like ubuntu. Your computer will have more storage space since the OS doesn't take up much I think it's like 2 or 4 GB and it will run faster. I use it on my old laptop and it runs super fast. Boot up time is like 5 seconds and it's ready to use.

 

I have already moved all data files off the C: drive and put them on the companion D: drive which has plenty of room. Upgrading the internal hard drives is probably not the smart thing to do as this laptop has other issues (like overheating on occasion) and I am not sure that it is worth spending more on it. It is scary to consider removing WinVista and putting in Linux, because my software programs will likely have problems. Thanks anyway.

 

Their is open source alternatives for most programs and with some tinkering you can get most of your windows programs to run in WINE. If this laptop isnt your main computer maybe you should give it a shot. worst case you run your recovery disk (if you got them) and reinstall your programs and if you had any virus on your computer it will be gone.

 

Have you deleted the update history?
Also check the "Turn Windows Features On/Off". You may not be using some features.

 

@pupul thanks for your comments. We will quickly expose my lack of technical knowledge with this discussion.

I used JDiskReport and it showed 6.4Gb in the Installer folder of Windows which I was wondering about. Is that the update history that you are referring to? I was wondering if I could delete that, but then thought that Windows might see the files missing and go through the update process again? I would love to delete those files and free up the space, but I do not want to screw anything else up, of course. Or is the update history somewhere else?

 

@jrbiz If you want I can help you with Teamviewer. I'll see what steps should be taken.
For these things I do help for FREE. Sorry for late reply. But Hudhud cyclone hit in our state. So heavy raining & some powercut here. Our place is safe from damage though.
Add me on skype: pupul13

 

Thanks for the great offer of help, @pupul and sorry to hear about the cyclone, though I am glad to hear that you are safe. Unfortunately, my day is booked up today with family activities, but I will add you to Skype and would love to coordinate a convenient time for you to take a look. I have TeamViewer on the machine (use it only as a client and not a server, to date, however) so that should work. Thanks again and I will reach out to you on Skype later tonight.

 

Yeah, that will work. When you get free time, you can add me. I'm maximum time online except I go for sleep. We can figure out some mutual time.

 

You might want to consider moving files and data that you don't use on a regular basis to the Cloud (Google Drive, Dropbox, etc.). This could free up some decent amount of space on your hard drive.

 

Thanks for your reply. The problem is that I have moved all files/data of mine to the other (D drive on the machine already. Of the 39.3Gb on the overloaded drive, 30Gb+ are WinVista. My main issue is that I have several applications that I will lose (have lost the CD's, etc.) if the disk fills up and the machine grinds to a halt. I have tons of free space on the other 40Gb D: drive in the machine, but nothing else that seems to be able to be moved over from the C: drive. Wish that I could split the OS files across the two drives.

 

You need to release a place on the hard drive and to leave there only the necessary programs?

 

Yes, and at this point, it seems like I will have to uninstall some applications and re-install them on the other partition. It is a pain but every time there is a Windows update, I lose even more space...

 

You cleared the Temp folder??

 

Yes. And I moved all data files to the d: drive. I used Disk Clean Up to remove some other files and even deleted all but the last System Restore.

 

And to increase the C drive through disk D? Acronis Disk Director и Paragon Disk Manager allows you to do this.If it does not, I can write in detail how to do it.

 

That is what I would like to do! I will look into these technologies and get back to you.

 

I will be glad to help you.

 

Popova_Anna, I am so sorry to see that you have been banned, because you solved my problem! I downloaded the free version of Paragon Partition Magic. The first time I tried it, it did not work, but I believe that was user error. I just tried it again and IT WORKED!!! I was able to transfer 10Gb from my relatively empty D: drive to my overloaded C: drive and all data, programs, etc., are still in place and working fine. I have to say that not only did I post this same question on some IT forums, but I also reached out to a supposed IT expert (who has a newsletter, etc.) and all comments came back that you could not do such a thing. You proved them wrong, solved a problem that has been vexing me for at least a year and I am grateful for your help. Pity that you may never hear about this.