Mysterious space loss

[HookahShawn]

Hi, my name's Ian, and I'm completely stupid when it comes to computers. 

That said, I'm running Window's XP Home, version 2002, Service Pack 2, on a Dell Dimension something or other.  2.19 GHz, 632 MB of RAM.

In theory, I should be able to fit just over 37 gigs of stuff on here, And for the life and soul of me I can't seem to account for more'n ten or twelve, even fifteen.  I actually can't acount for more than four, but I'm guessing there's at least double or triple that hiding in corners where my dumb eyes can't see it.    But, when I run my defragmenter, it tells me I've only got 4 and a half gigs of free space left.   

I can't seem to think of anything else I can take off the computer didn't come with, outside of AIM and iTunes (Which only has about three gigs of stuff on it), is there somewhere else I should be looking for trash-worthy files?  For the love of god, someone help me out.

[dl65]

HookahShawn ...... Well let's start with the obvious sting first.
d/l  CCleaner from http://www.ccleaner.com/     ..... Do not install the yahoo toolbar. Once you have it installed, run the cleaner part ...the brush icon ....
remove all it finds ........( it will not remove any required items)

Report back with the free space after running ccleaner.


dl65 

[patio]

How does My Computer report the used and free space when you right click the drive and select properties ? ?

[HookahShawn]

Okay, I ran ccleaner, and I'm up to 16% free, but that's still only 6 free gigs.  As near as I can figure, I should have at least fifteen.  Where do I go looking next?  It's all those porn sites what do it.

[doug_funny]

do you use any p2p sharing? Do you use iTunes? Programs like these make copies of the same thing. The last sentence you wrote LOL try searching "all" pics and "all" Videos. sometimes your computer makes more than 2 copies. Try deleting you temp internet files if you use Internet Explorer. When you do all of this get back to me

[patio]

How does My Computer report the used and free space when you right click the drive and select properties ? ?

[HookahShawn]

I haven't used any P2P in two years or so, and I use iTunes... and I just did a search for all my pictures, music and videos, and it produced a list of four or five instances of my My Pictures folder and two of my iTunes folder, but they both showed the same computer address, and I couldn't actually find any doubles when I explored the folders it pointed me to.  *censored* ftw?

Also, I clean out my internet temp files automatically each time I exit firefox, but I just did it manually just to check.  No noticeable difference.

[ultimatum]

You probably won't be able to delete all but atleast some or most of the files from here which take up a huge amount of space. If you go to control panel, folder options, view tab, check Show hidden files and folders, then go primary drive>documents and settings>user>Local Settings>Temp - first just check how much space does it take up and report back with the results.

[patio]

How does My Computer report the used and free space when you right click the drive and select properties ? ?

[GX1_Man]

Three times and he hasn't answered the question yet. Oh, well.... 

[contrex]

Three times and he hasn't answered the question yet. Oh, well.... 

I smell troll.

[HookahShawn]

You probably won't be able to delete all but atleast some or most of the files from here which take up a huge amount of space. If you go to control panel, folder options, view tab, check Show hidden files and folders, then go primary drive>documents and settings>user>Local Settings>Temp - first just check how much space does it take up and report back with the results.

I didn't see primary folder under control panels, although I did tell it to show hidden files and folders.  Somewhere else perhaps?

[patio]

How does My Computer report the used and free space when you right click the drive and select properties ? ?

[GX1_Man]

That's four requests for info buddy, and that's the limit before the posse signs off. do you not understand the question?