Category: Geeks r Us
Hi Guys,
I'm having some computer troubles and I'm wondering if anyone can help. I'm running very, very low on space on my disk. I've cleaned up my disk drive a bunch of times, but with no progress. Then I tried to uninstal a few programs in the add-remove programs, but when I try to do that, it says that it can't write the information to the disk because there isn't enough space. What can I do. If I have to do a complete Pc restore, is there any way I can do it without sited assistance? Thanks,
Leslie
for one, look at the files you have. are all the files you have stored absolutely needed? meaning audio files, themes in programs such as qwitter or klango that kind of thing. those use up disc space, and if you don't use or listen to certain files i suggest deleting or moving them to another drive for storage.
Yes great idea. After you go through your files and delete them, or move them then run your disk defrag under system tools. It will not run if the disc is too full. Many people when downloading save the executable files as well. Under downloads. You don't need these, so get rid of all. Now after you have gotten rid of all do the clean up and defrag. Moving or deleting 2 or 4 GB of stuff should be enough to get you back to rights. A 2 or 4GB flash drive is cheap. Their is another tool called C cleaner that you might use, but I caussion to only remove the things that are checked when using it unless you are comfortable with changes. www.ccleaner.com It is a free utility, but use it carefully.
I second CCleaner. If you haven't the space to install it i'd also recommend deleting temporary files.
quickest way is start menu, run, cmd
then type
del /s /q %temp%
remember the percent signs.
and your computer will delete what tempoary files it can.
Cheers
Sam
Also, you might wanna delete everything in the prefetch folder as well, look for that folder in c:windowsprefetch, then once you're in that folder, do the key combination to select all, then shift delete, and say yes when it asks you if you'd like to delete files.
My bet is that you have a virus / piece of malware that is eating up space as soon as you deleet stuff.
Scanning with things like malware bytes, super anty spyware and security essentials should fix this; all of these can be run portably or installed onto a flash drive to preserve diskspace.
I like ccleaner, but I find that
http://www.stevengould.org/index.php?Itemid=69&id=15&option=com_content&task=view
tends to find a few things that ccleaner doesn't - plus, it cleans up every profile in one which ccleaner doesn't do.
Before any of that try running Disk Cleanup from System Tools. On Vista or 7 it will ask for your own or all profiles, pick All. Then let it tick away till it's done, and everything that's checked by default you can count upon, then press OK or whatever the button is. That tends to get a lot of files including System Restores which you should make sure and check, as well as memory dump / error log files. Some of these error dump files are really large now because they are encrypted and sent to Microsoft if you click 'Send'.
Then do what everyone else has pointed out on here. All good stuff.