Hard Drive getting too full!!!

[Spearball]

Hi. Its been about 3 months now that my hard drive space keeps geting smaller and smaller each day. I had 80 gb now im at 69.2gb. I douth that its my internet cache because i always empty it and i rarly browse the web. Iv'e got no virus' (i've checked many times). Does someone know any good programme that can delete any unesesary files without worry?

Also is there a way to speed up my computer without any upgrade?


Sorry for my spelling...

[LadyGrey]

Hi Spearball,some more info on your computer would be helpful. I run W2K and I go to start>programs>accessories>system tools. There is Disk Clean up and Defrag there. You might try both of those. I know defragmenting helps sometimes. If you have alot of video or audio files that will eat space for sure.
The guru's should be along shortly with lots more help. In the mean time it really would help if you could post more info on your computer.
LG ;)

[PrntRhd]

I can certainly recommend CCleaner (free open source) for keeping the PC clean. It cleans out temporary files made during installations, temporary internet files, Java cache, also index.dat files, and more.
www.ccleaner.com

[classicsoftware]

Believe it or not, bad RAM or not enough RAM can cause this. If you are using more of the swap file it will increase in size.

Please post full system specs....

[Spearball]

Ok im not exactly sure where to get all my specs but i know that i got a P4 1.8ghz. A intel tehama i850(e) mobo, windows xp professional with service pack2, direct x9, an nvidia geforce 4 with agpx8 video card, 512 mb (rdram), creative sound blaster x-fi for sound, and a maxtor hard drive 120gb. If u need anymore specs just ask me.

[Sylvander]

DiskFrontier = http://dl.winsite.com/bin/downl?500000031670 [free]

Use this to display [graphically] your HDD's usage of space.
The greatest usage is displayed at the top.
See if you can spot things which are a waste of space and can be deleted to the recycle bin and deleted from there [things in the Recycle Bin still use space][or even better use "Eraser" from www.tolvanen.com/eraser/ ].

If you have ZoneAlarm installed check to see how much space the files in "C:\WINDOWS\Internet Logs" are using.

If your internet connection isn't too slow [reasonable fast like broadband], then you don't need a large store of "C:\WINDOWS\Temporary Internet Files"; set that to a small size.

If you can...
Make multiple partitions and move all your data files off C:
Move your personal data files to a small separate partition [even better to put them on a small [perhaps old, spare] separate physical HDD as follows:
[I have Win98, yours might be done differently]
a. My Documents. [Use “TweakUI” to move their home]
b. E-mails for all identities. [use the email client to move their home]
c. Internet Explorer Favourites. [Use “TweakUI” to move their home]
d. Temporary Internet Files. [use the browser (Internet Explorer) to move them]
e. Re-home the Windows Address Book as shown here http://tinyurl.com/24q6l . Use the key “HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\WAB\WAB4\Wab FileName” to specify its new address. [Its normal home address [in Win98] is C:\WINDOWS\Application Data\Microsoft\Address Book\(the name you gave your PC).WAB]

You should only hold the "Windows" & "Program Files" folders on C: plus the configuration files of course [and some odds & bods].
This makes C: quick and easy to do things like defragment, backup, and restore.
Make backups of all your partitions as suits their needs, but particularly C:
As you move forward day by day, make backups of C: when all's well.
[Use "Image" on the bootable EBCD for free from http://ebcd.pcministry.com/ ]
If you so much as suspect a software problem, restore your latest suitable backup.
When you do this all your data files [particularly your personal data] will remain untouched and up-to-the second [and also backed up].

[jcnoernberg]

I would open up your C:\ drive, right click on each folder and note the size. It sounds like you don't know where you're losing your storage to and if you don't have any video/music, etc. on there, no folder should be any bigger than a few GB. If you find a 40GB or so folder, open that up and repeat the above. Hopefully you can narrow it down to a single folder. Let us know what you find if it is something unexpected.

[classicsoftware]

Just another thing to consider. If you have XP pro, Check your Dr. Watson Logs. There may be hardware problem. I had this exact scenario and It was bad RAM filling the Dr. Watson log until the 20 GB hDD was completely full.. New RAM, no problem....

[123456]

I had the exact problem a few months ago on my sister's pc.
It happned to be some sketchy 60gb file in the Windows folder.
It was called SVChost.exe, (but verify the size is above a few gigabytes before deleting it, if you delete the wrong svchost, your windows installation may be screwed!)

[rond36]

I had the exact problem a few months ago on my sister's pc.
It happned to be some sketchy 60gb file in the Windows folder.
It was called SVChost.exe, (but verify the size is above a few gigabytes before deleting it, if you delete the wrong svchost, your windows installation may be screwed!)

Did you scan for viruses?

svchost.exe (http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=314056) shouldn't be more than 12 - 15KB in size and it should be in the %SystemRoot%\System32 folder.

[Spearball]

ok guys i found part of my problem. I found a ut2004 cache file. It was a 7.3gb folder. It had all usless downloaded maps in it so i deleted the files in it. I dont seem to find anything else though...