My hard drive is full. Will that effect the speed of my computer?

Question

My 80GB hard drive is 92% full. Probably a virus but I can't find it. Will a full hard drive effect the speed of processing information? The computer is slower than a snail.

I have norton running all the time. I have defragged the HD. I have emptied the recycle bin. I do not visit those "sites" which down load "crap". I have reviewed all programs and deleted all possible. Anyone know how to actually view the full contents of the HD.

My task manager indicates I have 90+% of the cpu available. Nothing else running according to the task manager.

Answer 1

Yes it will if its that full! Sounds like you are a frequent user of p2p sites and have a ton of downloaded files too! If so, you are probably so infested with malware it aint funny which only adds to your problem! Defrag your hard drive, run your adware and virus removal software and learn to stop downloadin all that infested crap!

Answer 2

Yes. The more data it has to search through, the slower its search speed. You could try search for files on your hard disk that are larger than, say 100 MB.

Right click on My Computer, select "search." Select "all files and folders" and then select "what size is it?" and enter a value.

You should find some really large files that (hopefully) can be deleted. You could also try defragmenting your hard drive, but don't expect huge noticeable results.

Your processor speed is not affected, but that doesn't matter if your computer takes forever to find something on the hard drive.

It may well be the other software that's running that's slowing down your computer. A ctrl+alt+delete will bring up your Task Manager. Review the processes list -- is there something taking up a lot of CPU time that shouldn't be running at all? Like "Trojan.worm.exe" or something like that? Do you have antivirus software that can do a scan? That would be the next thing to try.

Good luck!

Answer 3

of direction it does. imagine of a not undemanding force as a vinyl list. they're similar...with platters and a needle. On a not undemanding force, archives is written in a contiguous trend from the periphery to the interior. As you upload archives and eliminate archives, that contiguous line is broken causing the needle from getting in a spiral line inward to getting access to archives accross the completed platter randomly (style of radonmly). Now, abode windows is a source hog, and extremely inefficient at the same time as it contains memory. So it makes use of what develop into pronounced as a swapfile contained in the free area of a not undemanding force. So whenever you open a observe record you're not any further actual starting that record, you're starting a temp report contained in the swap report. once you keep, actualyl press the keep button, then it saves the adjustments you made to the unique record at the same time as you keep engaged on the temp. once you've an entire not undemanding force, the position does abode windows create that temp report? Thats why abode windows deliver with a defrag app.

Answer 4

The speed of the computer will be affected. Working with a slow computer can be time consuming as programs/ applications take a long time to start. This problem is more pronounced in computers which have been used for 6 or more months. More information at http://fixit.in/slowcomputer.html

Answer 5

Why does everyone relate every problem to a virus? Viruses are responsilbe for like 1% of computer related issues.

Looks like you have 6.4GB remaining which should be fine. If this drops below 1GB you could have some issues.

Defragment your hard disk and add additional RAM if the amount of RAM installed is 512MB or less.

Clear out your recycle bin and Temporary Internet Cache

Answer 6

Sure, it will affect your PC performance. First clear all documents from the desktop to my documents. A friend of mine advices less than 10 MB on your desktop. DO A BACKUP OF YOUR DATA, AND SET A CONFIGURATION POINT OF REFERENCE. now you can erase data, or erase temporal files. (you will lose them forever): empty your recycle bin, go to my computer, clic on C, right clic, properties, on general tab, clic disk clean up and be patient... choose what you want to delete for ever. Hope this helps.
You can do a free virus scan at mcafee website.

To look at your computer usually you use the windows explorer, it is a folder icon with a magnifying glass. You when opening my program files or other folders it will warn you that those are hidden. Tell the program that you want to view them. The only advice is that anything you change WRITE IT DOWN STEP BY STEP. Usually it is hard to know how we get into some computer folders. You can also use de MS DOS to look at your folders, it is faster but you need to understand DOS...

I agree that NORTON antivirus makes your computer slower than without it. I use Avast because it's free, my brother uses AVG. You can find other antivirus in the market. Unistalling Norton can be difficult.

Also you might have some spyware. I check that by turning on and using my computer with the internet connection and without it. If performance is different only by doing so, I suspect there are some spy programs. I use ZoneLabs Zone Alarm (the free version of course) to have some control on which programs have access to my computer..

You need to check if you have conflicting software, for instance if you have several programs that do the same, they could make your machine slow (PC does not know which to choose or runs all of them for a simple task). Also you might have programs that you don´t use: uninstall them. (if you want to install them later, ensure that you have the installation disk and license keys).

If you need extra storage on the go (anyway you need a backup drive) I reccomend you use a USB drive, I like the ones that have to be plugged through USB from your computer, instead of using and adapter (you have a double USB cable, or a very neat USB cable). I would reccomend that you look for 100 GB at least (since you already have used 92), though you might need more than that. I reccomend 100 GB, because this size they still have some nice portable devices, bigger than that external drives usually are too big to carry with you. Anyway, the ones I have like are La Cié (if I had the money I buy it) and I use a Maxtor mini, I also have a big Maxtor as backup. I have no idea why you have so much information. I have all my "in use" information in a 1GB flash drive and I update it everytime I change it. (with a synchronization program: I use Synchronize it from Grisoft, some friends of mine use FullSync). I also have a HUGE external drive for back up. It is a Maxtor. I believe there are better brands. I reccomend that you go for a good brand on a backup drive. Information sure is worth more than anything.

A friend of mine would recommend you to use Tune Up Utilities, a program that helps you make yoru PC faster. I used it and my PC became faster. But you have to take care not to take out some starting programs that can be difficult to turn on, and usually are turned on when you start your program.


To summarize, check what might be happening:
-Heavy documents in your desktop or temporary files.
-Many programs at start up, you should use a program like Tune Up Utilities. Uninstall unwanted programs, keep installation and license keys if you want to later reinstall them.
-Multiple programs running at once: verify that you have at default programs for tasks were you have several programs.
-Antivirus slowing down your computer: change antivirus
-Spyware: protect yourself with an antispyware program
-duplicate files: enhance your filing system, backup your data.

If you really need to have more hard disk space I reccomend:
-buy a huge hard drive more than 100 GB
-detect your current use files and leave only these in your PC, Get the rest in your back up drive.
-travel around with a flash drive that has your current use files. If a flash drive cannot do it, then choose a nice light 80 to 100 GB drive.

Answer 7

you bet it could get rid of all the programs you really don't need along with files do a search for advanced windows care download it and run it it will really help do a disc clean up and defrag often

Answer 8

my first advice is remove the NORTON ANTIVIRUS. u will surely see the different in the speed.. norton is sucks.. it will take lot of memory, so uninstall it and install AVG, u can get free also www.grisoft.com or instal kaspersky antivirus.. this is best virus card in the market, im sure with this u can easyly find the virus..and uninstall unwanted softwares... try to keep more than 1GB space in ur C drive. if other drivers get full its ok, but dont make ur c drive full... try to keep more thn 1GB... AGAIN TELL YOU DONT USE NORTON. it will make ur computer speed 1/2. if you have any toolbars, like yahoo, google, mysearch ...etc. like tht uninstall everything... tht will make ur net slow...dont never install any toolbars.. uninstall everything. u dont need those toolbars. to protact your computer just use a virus card, dont use anything else, like trojan remover, bug remover like tht.. just install avg or kaspersky thts more than enough....and im sure your using windows... so go to www.microsoft.com and download "Windows Defender" and install it.. thts also good... thts it.. im 100% do wht i said and tell me if u dont see the different in ur computer.. if so ill stop use the computer forever...

Answer 9

yes it will. if the partition your windows is on now is full, your pc will run very slow. win xp needs about 1 gb free space.
i had a virus that multiplied untill it filled the hdd up and crushed the windows. i had to format all my hdd to get rid of it