Disk defragmenting won't work?

Question

I need to defrag my hard drive, but it says i need 15% free to do it correctly and i only have 2%. I tried to get rid of the programs I know i don't need, but it stayed at 2%. There are some programs I don't know what they are and do not know if they are important so i did not want to delete them. How can i get the 15% free to defrag the hard drive?
Thanks!!!

I have a Dell 1505
i have done the disk clean up
thanks for the responses so far!

Answer 1

well, you might want to start deleting some stuff regardless if you want to defrag or not. having only 2% free is going to cause many performance problems and will cause your computer and hard drive to run alot slower than normal. free hard space is usually used a a buffer to help windows run smoothly, so free space is sometimes used as Virtual Memory (and work just like the computer rams), this is an important function of your computer and having only 2% of free space kills that function. So click start, go to control panel, click add/remove programs, and remove any programs you don't need, you just have to. then go ahead and run your defragment because you will need it. you will for sure notice better perfomance once you do that.

Answer 2

If you are like most young people, there are probably tons of songs and pictures you downloaded. Start burning these to a CD or 2 or 3 to free up your hard drive. However, perhaps the best alternative would be to get an external hard drive (available at Best Buy, etc.) and transfer some of the stuff to the new drive.

Answer 3

I suggest you first make sure you cleaned out all items on your system that may be taking up space. Most people forget about or don't know about all the temporary files that can build up over time.

The first thing you need to do is set your system to show Hidden Files and Folders. To do this....

Go to your MyComputer icon on your destop and open it by clicking or double-clicking on the icon. At the top of the screen, chose TOOLS the FOLDER OPTIONS then VIEW (tab). Scroll down the list and find the topic listed as "Hidden Files and Folders" and make sure the dot is next to "Show Hidden Files and Folders". Right below that remove the checkmark out of "Hide extensions for known file types" Click APPLY button at the bottom, and then the OK button.
And close the screen.

Then click your START button in the lower left hand corner of your screen, and chose RUN from the list. In the RUN box type the follow .. %TEMP%

After you do so, a list of all of the temporary files stored on your computer will be shown. It is safe to remove every single .tmp file in that location. If you are running windowsXP the location should be C:\Documents & Settings\name\Local Settings\temp
Just so that you understand 100% of what I am saying. When you type %TEMP% In the RUN command line, you will be taken to a location on your harddrive called the temp folder. You are safe to remove everything "inside" of the folder named temp, including the oddly named yellow folders there.
But do not ever remove the actual folder named "temp".

Some of the files may not remove because they are being used and can usually be removed from safemode.

I also suggest you preform a Disk Clean up , by going to START then ALL PROGRAMS then ACCESSORIES then SYSTEM TOOLS then DISK CLEANUP

Knowing the Capacity of your harddrive will also be helpful in answering the question that you posted.

Please go to your MyComputer icon on your desktop and open it by clicking or double-clicking on the icon. Highlight your C:\ < drive and right click on it with your mouse and chose Properties. On the General (tab) look for your "Used Space" and "Free Space" and "Capacity" numbers and post them back.

Answer 4

With only 2% left on that drive, you need to add a second drive to the computer.

You must have pictures or music files on the computer that are taking up a lot of space.

I would need to know the make and model of the computer to help you any further.

Go out on the internet and download and install a program called CCLEANER. Run it and it will remove ALL junk files from your computer. www.ccleaner.com

Answer 5

To defrag with a really good, program, use AusLogics Disk Defragmentation because the one that comes with your computer is not really that great: it's slow and hardly updated.
Also great for emptying missing files, temp. files, broken registry links, etc., trying using Advanced Windows Care, V2.
Oh, by the way, they're both highly rated and FREE!!!

Answer 6

Please add make and model and disk size and % full if its 98%full you seriously need to burn to any other media and remove files.
By the way defrag does not add disk space.
One other thought if you lower the ammount of space taken up by system restore to 4% this will gain you disk space
Rt click MyComputer>properies>move the tab to the left if youve nerver set this its at 12%
That just might work

Answer 7

Right go into control pannel and click add and remove programs
look the top right corner and arrage them by size
if its not a anti virus, intternet secutiy or fire wall, or microsoft office suit ul be fine
but if u click remove on the larger programs wont take u long
ps should remove cookies aswell
windows > run>cookies(type)> and delete all off them

Answer 8

you could to to the add/remove programs and delete things that you dont need. If you CANT than you probally need a larger hard drive, like 80GB+.

Answer 9

you have a big problem here.. your hard drive is getting full.. and you say you don't know what programs to remove,cause you don't know what they are. well we are like you neither do we know what they are either so can't help you out

Answer 10

do you have an external hard drive, where you could put you photos and other stuff?