Windows Explorer help....

brettw22

I'm trying to offload as much data as possible before taking my laptop in for service, but I somehow have 35 gig of crap somewhere on my C drive but I can't find it. Do any of y'all know of a way that I can find out where all the data is? I've gone down the list and tried to find out folder by folder where all this stuff is, but I can't seem to find it in mass........

Any help would be hugely appreciated.....

BIZILL

tryin' to rid yourself of some embarassing ****, eh? kidding. have you deleted temporary internet files? open ie, tools, internet options and then delete files.

brettw22

I' using Mozilla......and the temp files wouldn't be anything near 30+ gig......

nadams

You can use a program such as spacemonger to find where most of the space it being taken up- http://www.werkema.com/software/spacemonger.html

bobman1235

I'm pretty sure the "Find" feature lets you find files over a certain size, if you'r ejust looking for a few really large files that might be taking up space.

BIZILL

how much of the 35 gigs would you estimate is 'crap'?

nadams

I think that's what he's trying ot figure out

BIZILL

yeah, but i'd just do what he's already doing. play in explorer. make sure folders show hidden folders as well.

bobman1235

Chances are he doesn't want to delete anything in hidden folders.

CrBoy

Hey Brett... Do you have games installed? Sometimes games create huge files and profiles to save all your stuff (saved games, customizations, maps, characters... all that ****!)

Keep lookin'

brettw22

I've been using that spacemonger thing, but is there a program that seperates out files as in what's usable data, what's dll's, cache, etc, program data, etc so that it's easier to find things? I'm down to 19 gig, but a bare bones windows installed laptop shouldn't ultimately have more than what....abot 4 gig on it?

bobman1235

No program could possibly know what's "usable data" and what's not. Obviously DLLs are important, but some file with some random extension could be just as important.

If you're that anal about all this random wasted space, just reinstall windows from scratch.

madmax

Brett,
The best thing to do would be to grab one of those USB external drives for a hundred bucks and copy everything over. Then they can reformat it or whatever they want and you will never loose anything. After aquiring a drive like that you can easily keep your laptop backed up as well.
madmax

McLoki

Highlight program files (in explorer) and click on properties and that will tell you how much space is currently in that folder (and all sub folders).

Do the same with your windows (or windowsNT) folder.

I am guessing that most of the space will be in one of those two folders.

once you have determined that, just go through the folders and do the same thing till you find the problem.

I would guess your windows folder to be 4-6 gig and your program files to be taking up the rest. Unfortunately, I would also guess that there is no "smoking gun" taking up all your space - bet it is a ton of installed programs that are no longer being used.

Get a USB drive and back up the drive. When you get your computer back from service, reformat and reinstall windows and your apps. (only copying data from the usb drive, not restoring the whole thing)

You will be surprized how much faster windows runs that way.

Michael

Pablo

Could some of that be your windows swap file?

BIZILL

how big a section you have reserved for system restore?