HELP laptop keeps saying low disk space, even after much file was deleted.What to DO?

Question

I have a Vaio and apparently the C: drive only has 300mb left, I don't download anything, don't store a lot of photos, AND I have tried deleting all the unneccessary files. It seems to lose space everyday. what's going on? It has 14 GB, what is taking up all those space? what can I do to free up more space? Can I transfer some to my D: drive, which has 37 GB? AHHHhhh...fraustrated~~

p.s. no viruses were found either, and I've been running the cleaner everyday. still no hope

Answer 1

If you c drive is continually filling up without you adding anything, you may have a virus. Viruses will do that as they replicate themselves. Download AVG Free Edition from download.com and run it. Should clean the virus for you.

Then you need to clear up some more space on the C drive
You can move any data files you have to your d drive.

You can also move some of your programs to the D drive, but in order to do that you have to uninstall them from the C drive. Then rerun the install and if it does not ask you were to install the program, then you may have to select a custom or advanced install to get it to ask you. When it ask, tell it to use d:\ rather than the c drive. (You might want to create a "programs" folder on the d drive and install things there to keep them better organized)

You will need to get the amount of free space down to at least 1 gig for the c drive to run correctly.

Answer 2

There are a lot of possibilities as to why your harddisk is losing space every now and then even if you are not downloading and storing new files into it.

Here are the possibilities:
1. It can be cause by a Trojan or Virus. If you had scanned using your virus scanner, if it says that no virus is found, that doesn't mean your computer is free from virus. Try using a different virus scanner with latest virus definitions and scan the whole computer in safe mode.

2. It can be cause by a spyware automatically run at startup. You can view the startup by clicking Start-> all programs -> Startup , remove unnecessary programs that is set to auto start. Also check your registry by typing regedit at the run. Go to HKey_Local_Machine->Software->Microsoft->Windows->Currentversion->Run , in that location you will be able to find entries of programs to auto start when you start windows, delete entries which you think is a spyware.

3. What Operating System are you using? Please check virtual memory settings. Virtual memory are hard disk space used as memory to if you RAM is not adequate. If you are using windows xp, you can check your virtual memory settings by doing this, Right-Click on my computer, choose properties, Click on the Advanced Tab, Click on the Performance Settings, then Click on Advanced. And lastly click on Change under virtual memory.

Answer 3

Ignore the other responses to this question which advise you to format your C: drive. This will wipe out all your stuff and your system. They write this in the hopes of amusing themselves at your expense.

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If you have only 300 mb left and you delete 100 files of 50KB each, then you still have a problem. But if you delete 100 files of 50MB each, then you've made good progress. The important thing is you must go after the big files. Don't waste time deleting little files; you will just tire yourself without accomplishing much.

WARNING: If you plan to delete a lot of stuff from your disk, you risk accidentally deleting somethign you really want. Consider protecting yourself by making a backup copy of everything you really want. Make the backup before you start deleteing. Also, you probably got a set of reinstallation disks from the manufacturer of your computer. If you really screw up your computer, you can reinstall everything, beginning with these disks.

That said, how do we find the big files on a windows computer?

The first place to look is for movies and music. Movie and music files are the largest files ordinarily found on a personal computer. Do you have your iTunes stored on this computer? Burn them to CDs or DVDs and then delete them from your C: drive.

The next biggest kind of file tends to be pictures. Do you have photos stored on this computer? Burn them to CDs or DVDs and then delete them from your C: drive.

If you tried the above and you still have a problem, then you have to hunt for the big files. Open a Windows Explorer window by right-clicking the Start button and choosing Explore. In the explorer window, choose Tools -> Folder Options -> View -> Show Hidden Files and Folders. Uncheck Hide Extensions for known File Types. Uncheck Hide Protected Operating System Files. -> OK -> View ->Details

In the right-hand pane of the explorer window, you will see column headings. You can drag them left and right and so rearrange them. The leftmost column should be the name. The next column should be size. Click on the size column once or twice so the largest sizes are at the top of the list. Choose Tools->Folder Options->View->Apply to All Folders ->OK

In the left-hand pane, browse to the C: drive, so that the right-hand pane shows the contents of C:\

Start at the top of the list, and consider each file one-by-one. Decide whether to keep it or delete it. If you know you don't need it on your hard drive, then you can delete it. If you choose to delete it, you may wish to copy it to a cd or dvd first. Then delete it. Then consider the next file in the list. hiberfil.sys and pagefile.sys are rather important files, and probably also fairly large, and you want to leave them on your disk. If you don't know what a file is or does, then you probably want to leave it (maybe after noting its name) and move on to the next file. If necessary, you can research it and find out what it is and what it does and then reconsider deleting it, but for now, just move on to the next file. Also, set a limit for yourself -- that is, distinguish between little files and big files. If a file is less than, say, 10,000KB (10MB), then waste no time considering it further, and just leave it and move on.

When you have considered all the big files in the folder, then consider the folders in the folder. While the files were in order by size, microsoft in its wisdom has not made folders sortable by size. But you can mouse-over the folder icons and see how big the folder is. A folder technically has no significant size except for the combined size of the files it contains. If you find one more than 10MB, then double-click on it, which will cause you to browse inside it. Repeat the process of considering the largest files as deletion candidates.

When you have considered all the files and subfolders of a folder, then move back up to its parent folder, and reconsider the contents of that folder.


Good luck.

Answer 4

You might hav caught something subtle, like some folks have said.

Which cleaner did you run? I like ccleaner,it's free and very thorough. If you want to save your cookies, make sure you uncheck the cookie box.

Answer 5

Drag all your large files (video clips, music clips, images) to your "D" drive.

Also.. clear up your Internet Browser Cache to free up some space.

Answer 6

Format the computer right click C drive and click format.

Answer 7

you are infected with a virus and your current av is incompetent....do online scans on pccillin and panda antivirus software...google thier sites......

Answer 8

sounds weird

Answer 9

Did you also empty your recyling bin?

Answer 10

See -- https://reimagefix.im