Bob-PC (D:) is nearly full. What to do?

[Bobh]

I am running Vista Home Basic on an E Machine.  I have been having troubles, including not being able to restore and low space on the D drive.  I tried several things but nothing seems to help.  I decided to get a full factory recovery and start all over.  I did this after which I deleted all the programs I don't use which are quite a lot.  I now have 26 programs.  I have ran Ccleaner and disk cleaner.  I thought this would reduce the space that is being used in D drive.  Not so.  I now have 27.5 MB free of 8.36 GB in Bob-PC (D:).  Needless to say I am getting low space messages.  The only thing that is in the D drive is  "RECOVERY" .  What do I do now?  Thanks for help.   Bob

[potere scuro]

do you have an external hard disk? if so copy your recovery to that.

[Bobh]

Potere scuro - 
Thanks for your reply but I do not have an external hard drive.  I use the computer for fun.  I play jigsaw puzzles, get news, weather reports, check the stock market, etc.  I have resisted extra things like external drives and such because I don't know to use them and I don't have anybody to teach me.  I have learned a lot from forums like this one.   Bob

[potere scuro]

they are very easy to use and if you stuck im sure someoneon here would be more than happy to help you.
Do you have important info on this computer?

[Mulreay]

Unfortunately you have a very low hard drive for today's programmes. You seem to be Ice skating up hill.  The more programmes you add to clear the problem the more space you are taking. I'm not exactly clear what it is you want to do?? You need to upgrade plain and simple.

[Bobh]

Mulreay -
I have not added programs.  I have deleted programs.  I agree that I need to upgrade but how?  I have a page from Gateway (they make E Machines) that tell what to do for low space on drive D but It did not help.  They said get rid of unused programs, which I did.  I am not too smart about computers but I will try to follow any suggestions.  Bob

[potere scuro]

Do you have important info on this computer?

[Mulreay]

Do you realise that deleting a programme does not fully get rid of it? Have you done a 'disk cleanup' and a (de-frag)?

[Bobh]

Potere Scuro -
What kind of information do you want?  It is  32 bit .  The processor : Intel(R)
Celeron(R) D CPU 3.33GHz   Memory  1.49 GB

[Bobh]

Mulreay -
I did a disk clean up on both the C & D drives.  I started a defag but it ran so long I gave up.  I did delete one temp file from D drive but it was listed as ) bytes so that did no good.     I also have a page titled "Can I repartition my hard disk?" but it uses terms that I don't know what they mean, therefore I can not follow the instructions.  I need a simple way to get more space in my D drive.   Bob

[Bobh]

I have been told that a person should never put anything in D drive.  It is for the recovery and only recovery.   Is this true?  I don't know how things get there.   I suppose when you run a program part of it is in D drive but I have no idea how.  I know that sometimes D drive has more stuff in it than at other times and I never put anything there.  What I need is more space or some way to get rid of some of what is there.   Bob

[Mulreay]

Mulreay -
I did a disk clean up on both the C & D drives.  I started a defag but it ran so long I gave up. 

You gave up? Why would you give up? Disk de-frag is one of the most important things you do on your system atleast once a month. It may take minutes or hours but you let it run. I had a De-frag take 7hrs but it cleared over 12gb of storage. You need to do a disk clean first and de-frag then we will see what your left with. CLEAN-DISK first though. You will get that right next to de-frag. Deleate all the crap you don't need go to accessories then to system tools. You want to run a disk cleanup first 'let it run' then run a defrag. But leave it alone it can take hours. I know it's a pain but it's worth remembering in the future dont leave it so long! 

[Mulreay]

Once you have done it then let's look at the problem!

[2x3i5x]

in the windows disk cleanup tool, did you have it clean out system restore points? That's one place that takes up a lot of space if you have restore points that are really old and therefore not really something you're keeping.

[Bobh]

2x3i5x -
Yes I deleted all but the last restore points.  Since I did a full factory restore there was no restore points to start .   I got rid of everything I could think of and after that I ran a backup onto a DVD.  It took two DVDs which surprised me.  I haven't tried to use them to run a restore but I will in the next day or two.  Thanks    Bob