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Morrisminor
new user
Reg'd: Mon
Posts: 4
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Hi,
My ACER laptop has a 20gig hard drive, and runs on windows Home Edition with SP2, it says that I need to defrag the computer but that I dont have enough hard disc space. I only have 2% left and that my disc is full. I have removed all photo's and music, and run disc clean up but this does not seem to make much difference. Has anyone any idea what can be using so much space on my hard drive, and how I can get this space back?
Thanks.
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BurrWalnut
Chippendaler
Reg'd: Tue
Posts: 3477
Loc: London, England
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The best place to start is to reduce some of the ‘reserved’ space :-
1. Right-click My Computer, Properties, System Restore Tab, click in the left pane and change the space settings. Don’t make it less than about 500MB.
2. Right-click the Recycle Bin, Properties and reduce the settings, or temporarily disable it.
3. Right-click the desktop, Properties, Screen Saver Tab, Power, Hibernate Tab and disable it.
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The Chippendale Society
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Morrisminor
new user
Reg'd: Mon
Posts: 4
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Thanks,
Will try this later today.
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Madeline
regular
Reg'd: Wed
Posts: 14628
Loc: Wales
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Hi and welcome to WU. To add to BurrWalnut's first point, restore points take up quite a lot of space and if you've got a lot of restore points, you can remove all but the most recent one, but only do this if you're sure that everything's running OK and you won't need an earlier restore point. Run Disk Cleanup and click on the "More Options" tab and use the 3rd option. Depending on how many restore points you're getting rid of, this will free up some more space. In the Help and Support Centre it says
Quote:
A volume must have at least 15% free space for defrag to completely and adequately defragment it. Defrag uses this space as a sorting area for file fragments. If a volume has less than 15% free space, defrag will only partially defragment it. To increase the free space on a volume, delete unneeded files or move them to another disk.
So I think that means you need about 3GB spare to run Disk Defragmenter successfully.
Madeline. 
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"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." Lord Acton, 1887.
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Morrisminor
new user
Reg'd: Mon
Posts: 4
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Many thanks for this additional help. I followed the earlier advice and reduced my restore file size from 2,500 mb to just over 900mb. This freed up 33% of my hard drive and the defrag was a success. It did take over 5 hours but it worked and my drive looks a lot better now. But will also check out your suggestion.
Thanks again
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BurrWalnut
Chippendaler
Reg'd: Tue
Posts: 3477
Loc: London, England
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Now that you have a reasonable amount of free space, I suggest you remove the Windows hotfix backup files and their corresponding entries in Add/Remove Programs :
Download, extract and run this little script http://www.dougknox.com/xp/utils/xp_hotfix_backup.htm Create a system restore point first just in case anything goes wrong during the registry updating.
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The Chippendale Society
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Madeline
regular
Reg'd: Wed
Posts: 14628
Loc: Wales
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You're welcome. I'm glad that you've been able to defrag successfully. I tend to remove all but the most recent restore point fairly often by using Disk Cleanup.
Madeline.
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"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." Lord Acton, 1887.
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