drive space missing

[ana moss]

I am having a problem with my computer C drive.  My hard drive is partitioned into a C and a D drive, and i'm not having problems with D.  In C, I should have about 4 gb of space.  i have been getting messages saying i only have 2 mb of free space in C and I should clean up any programs i'm not using.  but, i have hardly any programs on my comp, i've deleted most of them because of this message, but i still get it.  and, when i look through C, i can't account for most of the taken space.  is there something I can do to fix this without wiping my hard drive and starting over.  

i us XP, my system is a mix of components, i don't know the processor or anything because it was put together by someone other than myself.
I have done everything windows recommends, deleting programs, temp files, cookies, trash, but nothing will increase my disk space.

any help would be great, thanks!

[Mac]

Hello Ana, how big is the total drive size (80 GB?) and how big is the C: and D: drive?

Have you reduced the old System Restore points to one?

When you say 4 GB is that the total size of drive C: ?

[pcwizard]

Ana,

check out my response to a similar post

http://www.computerhope.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=1;action=display;num=1132767922

[ana moss]

my total drive size is 14 GB, C is approximately 4 and D is about 10.

I can't do anything with system restore, it is suspended because I don't have enough disk space.  the most i can do is reduce the amount of space it uses (it's at 200MB now) and turn on or off system restore entirely.

[ana moss]

the other weird thing is that i just cleaned up some of my documents (which i completely moved into D), and the total space it said that occupied was about 90MB, but after i did that and then checked the available space on C, it said only 9.85, so i'm confused if i'm not deleting or moving things correctly or are forgetting something.
I do have hidden files/folders visible, and i have nothing in my Temp or Doc and Settings folders.

[Mac]

4 GB is really too small a partition for XP. Can you move the Email folder and the paging file to your D: drive?

Have you used CCLeaner to remove the junk files?

CLEANUP

[Mac]

My total drive size is 14 GB, C: is approximately 4 GB and D: is about 10 GB.

I can't do anything with system restore. It is suspended because I don't have enough disk space.  The most I can do is reduce the amount of space it uses (it's at 200MB now) and turn on or off system restore entirely.

Pity MS didn't think to provide a facility to move the System Restore folders to another partition as with Backup.

14 GB (Metric size) = 13.04 GB (Binary size) = 13351.44 MB

4 GB = 4096 MB

You could also use a Partition resizer such as comes with BootIT NG. (Disconnect from the Internet and uninstall  your anti-virus program first.)

[4 GB drive C:]{[ 10 GB documents drive D: ]}

[ 6 GB  drive  C:]{[ 8 GB documents drive D:]}

You would need to shrink the D: drive and make sure that it is at the back of the drive, then shrink the extended partition. When that is done you can increase the size of the C: drive.

Backup ALL of your data first of all, AND make a drive image of the cleaned-up C: drive before doing such work, just in case it goes wrong.

PS. You could also move the Temporary Internet Files folder to the D: drive, and use TweakUI to move the CD burning 'Special' folder to the D: drive.

[Gustaaf]

Question:

Who installed this computer?
Are you the administrator of this PC?

It is possible that someone might have activated USER QUOTAS.
To verify:
1) Open Windows Explorer.
2) Right click on your C drive.
3) Click on properties.
4) Select the the tab "Qoutas"
5) Click quota button.

find your login name and verify the settings. If applicable, remove the qouta restrictions.
Also disable the qouta management.

[ana moss]

This is my home computer, and it was installed/assembled by my father.  I am not the most computer literate person, especially with hardware.
Thanks everyone for the suggestions.  They make some sense to me, vaguely, but because i'm not the most adept at doing anything to my computer.  Would it be smarter for me to take it somewhere or to someone who is familiar with this or is that a waste of time?

[ana moss]

Mac,
In one of your posts you referenced, you talk about deleting updates and hotfix uninstallers.  I have a number of hotfix in my Add/Remove programs list and a number of those folders in C:\Windows.  Is it ok to just delete all these, how do I know if they're security updates?

Thanks

[GX1_Man]

Let's solve the problem before we add more variables into the mix. Usually it is quite safe, but don't tempt fate!

[Mac]

Mac,
In one of your posts you referenced, you talk about deleting updates and hotfix uninstallers.  I have a number of hotfix in my Add/Remove programs list and a number of those folders in C:\Windows.  Is it ok to just delete all these, how do I know if they're security updates?

Thanks

If you click on the link below you'll get to the CLEANUP page. The unremovable Security Hotfixes are marked in Add-Remove programs.