I have a hard drive that keeps showing that my drive is full. Should I replace it and whats wrong.?

Question

The only thing on the drive is windows and Macafee and the basics it may be spy ware or something else and I don't want to spend all the extra money on another PC so should I just replace the drive.

Answer 1

Right click on the "My Computer" icon on your desktop and select open. You should see your hard drive listed along with it's total space and free space. If the free space is over a gig or two then it's doubtful you're running out of space while using your programs and there may be something else going on.

If it's less than that, then you may be filling your hard drive while surfing the net, downloading, using memory hungry software, etc. and you can probably make space by deleting temporary files and the like.

If you're running XP and maybe 2000 too (I'm not familiar with it). Go to start menu, then programs, then accessories, then system tools, and run the "disk cleanup" utility. Don't check the "compress old files" option - it's not worth it, but unless you have a reason not to then let it clean up all the others. This will delete temporary files, caches of old stuff, etc that could free a lot of memory. I've seen computers with 6-8 Gigabytes of temporary files left by print jobs, scans, and software installs.

If you're running a different version of windows you may have this program, or one like it, so look - but if you don't you'll need to do this stuff yourself or find someone else (that knows what can be deleted and not) to do it for you.

Of course you can always install any software that you don't ever use, or delete downloaded pictures, music, videos, etc. that you no longer want.

Answer 2

Go here and run a free test:
http://www.pcpitstop.com/
Just click on the yellow key and test anonymously. It is safe, I use it a lot. At the end, it should tell you what is wrong. It will let you know about spyware, etc.

Answer 3

How big is the drive?