Author Topic: Hard Drive Cleanup Possible Without formatting? (Read 6052 times)

wilmsp · « **on:** November 29, 2009, 01:53:48 PM »

I hope I'm posting in the right forum. I have a moderately older Dell Dimension 3000 and use XP. The drive is just 37 gig and I am up to 27 now. I have defragged and used various cleaners as well as deleted [bypassing the Recycle] almost to the bone, but the blamed thing is slow, slow, slow both on the net in some normal off-line functions. I know that before I began bypassing Recycle, nearly everything I've done [graphics, music, docs etc.] is likely buried somewhere on the drive. I've tried using DiskDigger and found literally hundreds and hundreds of files. As an experiment, I "restored" a few dozen to a special new file on desktop and then deleted them [bypassing again]. However, I think what was happening was DiskDigger was simply copying the targetted file and retaining the originally deleted file somewhere still on the drive.

Question: Short of reformatting the drive, is there a way I could get a dozen or so gigs off the drive - whether or not it results in a speedup? At least I'd have a greater drive capacity. Any help would be appreciated.

wilmsp - aka Bill Spenceley.

Allan · « **Reply #1 on:** November 29, 2009, 01:58:23 PM »

I really don't understand what you are talking about. First, speed (or lack thereof) on the net has NOTHING to do with your hd. Second, once a file is deleted from your hd it no longer takes up any space. Yes, it's stlll there (you actually only delete the pointer in the MFT), but the OS doesn't KNOW it's still there so it doesn't effect anything. Whatever is causing your system to run slowly, I doubt it's the hd. And if you think it is, you should buy a larger one.

BC_Programmer · « **Reply #2 on:** November 29, 2009, 01:59:43 PM »

Quote from: wilmsp on November 29, 2009, 01:53:48 PM

Question: Short of reformatting the drive, is there a way I could get a dozen or so gigs off the drive - whether or not it results in a speedup? At least I'd have a greater drive capacity. Any help would be appreciated.

delete more files.

I assume that diskdigger is a file recovery program; using this likely will not result in more disk space.

What happens when you delete a file (either using Shift-delete or emptying the recycle bin) is basically the file is removed from the allocation table (although exactly what transpires depends on the file system) and the clusters it used are marked as free. So the file data is still on the disk, but the space is marked as free, and will be overwritten eventually as files are written to the disk.

wilmsp · « **Reply #3 on:** November 29, 2009, 02:22:37 PM »

Thanks BC for your reply. {you too Allen, if a little brusque] I fully understand the process - started with an Amiga 500 in 1985. But I am still not sure BC if that definitely answers my questions as to whether there is any other way to clean the previously deleted items from the drive - after using Delete. Recently, I simply checked by "Do not remove files to recycle bin. Remove files immediately when deleted." Yes,
DiskDigger is a freeware undelete item. It's fine for retrieval but cleanup?

Again, thanks but additional comment would be appreciated.

Allan · « **Reply #4 on:** November 29, 2009, 02:25:20 PM »

First, sorry if I sounded brusque - certainly not intentional. I just tend to be a "bottom line" kind of guy

Second - again, once you've deleted the files they are not taking up any space on the drive as far as the OS is concerned, so regardless of how many there are they are not effecting the speed of the drive. You do not need to "further delete" them.

wilmsp · « **Reply #5 on:** November 29, 2009, 02:58:27 PM »

Thanks Allen. I guess I have to resign myself to ssssllllooowww - or else add memory. RE the net speed, it's strange but sometimes things rocket along site to site [well, maybe speed along would be better since I'm on dialup] then perhaps 2/3 of the time I wait and wait from link or bookmark to the desired site. Maybe this might be due to my ISP or even the net itself?

Bill: aka wilmsp.

Allan · « **Reply #6 on:** November 29, 2009, 03:02:49 PM »

Yes Bill - the problem is either with your ISP or the net or the site itself, but certainly not the hd. And correct me if I'm wrong, but your system has 256 MB ram standard with a max of 1GB, is that correct? How much ram do you have?

wilmsp · « **Reply #7 on:** November 29, 2009, 03:39:58 PM »

Some time ago I added 500 meg ram so I have 756 which at the time speeded things up but since then - well, slow is probably complimentary to it. So I guess 756 meg ram is not all that much these days eh? I'll go after my ISP too.

Bill

Allan · « **Reply #8 on:** November 29, 2009, 03:45:18 PM »

Well, 756Mb should be enough to run XP nicely on that system. A newer, larger hd certainly would not hurt. I don't think another 256Mb ram is going to make much of a difference.

rthompson80819 · « **Reply #9 on:** November 29, 2009, 04:19:39 PM »

It's ironic that someone who started with an Amiga 500, which had no hard drive, is now worried about having ONLY 10 GB of free space.

Lyniaer · « **Reply #10 on:** December 01, 2009, 01:40:05 AM »

Try beefing up Virtual Memory.

Control Panel > System > Advanced > Advanced >
Under "Performance" click "Settings" click the "Advanced" tab.
Under "Virtual Memory" click "Change"
Select your drive and choose the radio buttom "Custom Size"
Set it to around 4,000 - 4,000 (i think that's the max on XP anyway)
ONLY DO THIS IF YOUR HARD DRIVE HAS THE SPACE FOR IT. 4,000MB
AND ALWAYS MAKE SURE YOUR HARD DRIVE KEEPS AT LEAST 2GIGS OF FREE SPACE AT ALL TIMES. If changing this setting cuts you anywhere near close to running out of space; buy a new Hard Drive.
Then click "Set" > "Okay" > "Okay" and if you're not prompted for a restart...restart anyway.

Also, I'd investigate for Spyware. Whether you use SpyBot or SpyHunter3 - the two programs I'll stake my life on - investigate any Spyware, Maleware, Virus', Trojans, Wyrms or, *censored*, PDQ Speed-up on the internet is to clear Caches, Cookies and stored data like Login Information and other such nonsense.

Future Suggestion; if you do buy a new HDD and you know what you're doing while installing windows; Make yourself a separate partition for the OS (30G is awesome) and leave the rest for installing programs and saving data. Just make sure any time you install a new program to point it towards your second partition. Works great for me.

That way if I have performance issues I just format the OS partition.

BC_Programmer · « **Reply #11 on:** December 01, 2009, 02:56:32 AM »

how would increasing the pagefile size decrease disk usage?

Lyniaer · « **Reply #12 on:** December 01, 2009, 03:09:29 AM »

It wouldn't. It would increase it. But, it would significantly boost performance.
Disk Usage is up to the user.
If there's so much data and the computer's slowing down a Defrag is needed, but he's already done that.
If he's deleting stuff left and right but the amount of free space isn't increasing, then that's just weird.

If it's centering itself mostly on internet, then clear some caches, like I said.
Or, as a troubleshooting method, when it bogs down jump on the site www.speakeasy.net/speedtest and run a test to the server farthest away.

Allan · « **Reply #13 on:** December 01, 2009, 05:47:27 AM »

Increasing virtual memory as you suggest makes no sense whatsoever. Wilmsp - just leave the virtual memory as Windows Managed and you'll be fine.

Lyniaer · « **Reply #14 on:** December 01, 2009, 11:38:44 AM »

Kay. I won't say anything more in this topic.

patio · « **Reply #15 on:** December 01, 2009, 11:41:10 AM »

Good idea.

rthompson80819 · « **Reply #16 on:** December 01, 2009, 01:13:07 PM »

Back to the original question.

Back in the old days, when hard drives were measured in MB, rather than GB and TB, it was a common practice to review old files and programs and delete anything not essential.

With the size of today's hard drives we have all (myself included) gotten lazy about deleting old files and programs that are loaded or downloaded, used once and never used again.

If you are really concerned about free space on your hard drive, occasionally review all the programs and files on your hard drive and delete anything you really don't need.

patio · « **Reply #17 on:** December 01, 2009, 02:03:43 PM »

The other alternative you have which i don't believe has been mentioned here is to upgrade to a new HDD.

The procedure then is simple...you hook up the new drive as a slave...use the HDD manuf. utilities to "Clone" the old drive to the new one...

Then unhook the old drive...set the new one as slave and you're done.
All your data and apps will be intact...but you'll have alot more breathing room...

Geek-9pm · « **Reply #18 on:** December 01, 2009, 02:22:50 PM »

Quote from: patio on December 01, 2009, 02:03:43 PM

The other alternative you have which i don't believe has been mentioned here is to upgrade to a new HDD.

The procedure then is simple...you hook up the new drive as a slave...use the HDD manuf. utilities to "Clone" the old drive to the new one...

Then unhook the old drive...set the new one as slave and you're done.
All your data and apps will be intact...but you'll have alot more breathing room...

Best answer. I was going to say that.

Allan · « **Reply #19 on:** December 01, 2009, 02:35:00 PM »

disregard

Computer Hope Forum

News:

Author Topic: Hard Drive Cleanup Possible Without formatting? (Read 6052 times)

wilmsp

Allan

BC_Programmer

wilmsp

Allan

wilmsp

Allan

wilmsp

Allan

rthompson80819

Lyniaer

BC_Programmer

Lyniaer

Allan

Lyniaer

patio

rthompson80819

patio

Geek-9pm

Allan