hard drive space?

[Guest]

I'm a newbie at this please help! My system says I have 1.06 GB free space, total on system is 18.6 GB. How can I free up space? If you can explain what it means when I try to defrag, it reads you have 5% free space, need 15% to defrag. Do you want to defrag anyway? Should I defrag anyway?

 

[Will Denny]

Hi

You won't be able to Defrag - because of the error message, if correct, as
15% free space is needed. Can you go to a command prompt Start>Run then
type 'cmd' - without the quotes. At the command prompt type the following
and then see what the last line says.

dir /a/s

Does that report 1.06 Gb free?

--

Will Denny
MS-MVP Windows - Shell/User


| I'm a newbie at this please help! My system says I have 1.06 GB free
space, total on system is 18.6 GB. How can I free up space? If you can
explain what it means when I try to defrag, it reads you have 5% free space,
need 15% to defrag. Do you want to defrag anyway? Should I defrag anyway?

 

[Guest]

did as you said and here is what came back, total files liste
2768 File(s) 3,509,862m383 byte
1274 Dir (s) 1,150,038,016 bytes fre
does this help?

 

[Gerry Cornell]

You can create more free space by:

1. In Outlook Express empty your Deleted Items folder.

2. In Outlook Express run File, Folder, Compact All whilst OFFLINE.

3. Run Disk Cleanup. Start, Programs, Accessories, System Tools, Disk Cleanup.

4. Empty Recycle Bin.

Is your hard drive partitioned? If yes how large is each partition / drive and how much free space? How much ram memory do you have?

To offer further advice it would be helpful to know what are the larger files on your system. To see what is on your hard drive you need to change a number of settings. Select Start, Control Panel, Folder Options, View, Advanced Settings, and check "Show hidden files and folders". Whilst there uncheck "Hide File Extensions". Also check "Display the contents of system folders".

Next enter Windows Explorer and select View, Details and then select Choose Details -check all options except "Comments" and "File System".

Now to find the larger files on your system. Place the cursor on your My Computer and select Search, check All Files and Folders. Select further criteria, What size is it? -check "Large (more than 1 mb)", More advanced options -check Search System Folders, Search Hidden Files and Folders and Search Sub-folders" and then click on Search. Sort / resort the results by clicking on "Size" over the file size column. Make a list of the largest files and post the details here.



~~~~~~


Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
FCA

Stourport, Worcs, England
Enquire, plan and execute.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Please tell the newsgroup how any
suggested solution worked for you.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[Will Denny]

Hi

You have only got just over 1 Gb free space. From Start>Run type

diskmgmt.msc

what are the readings for your drive under the 'Capacity' and 'Free Space'
columns? The '2768 File(s) 3,509,862,383 bytes' line 'may' be a bit
excessive unless you have a lot of large files.

--

Will Denny
MS-MVP Windows - Shell/User


| did as you said and here is what came back, total files listed
| 2768 File(s) 3,509,862m383 bytes
| 1274 Dir (s) 1,150,038,016 bytes free
| does this help?

 

[Guest]

Defraging a hard drive means, basically, moving parts of files that are scattered all over the hard drive (fragmented), and putting them together (not fragmented). To accomplish this, those file parts need to be moved around, temporarily, while enough contiguous free space can be created to fit the entire file in one piece. In order to do this efficiently, the hard drive must contain large empty spaces for those files (or file parts) to be temporarily located. If there is not enough empty space, the file parts cannot efficiently be moved around -- thus slowing the entire defragmenting process to a crawl, or stopping it altogether.

With only 5% free currently, you're looking at a lengthy defrag process. Your best bet is to delete any un-needed files from your hard drive in order to create more free space. Then perform a ScanDisk in order to find/fix any hard drive errors (this can sometimes free-up more space). THEN run defrag.

----- jct883 wrote: -----

I'm a newbie at this please help! My system says I have 1.06 GB free space, total on system is 18.6 GB. How can I free up space? If you can explain what it means when I try to defrag, it reads you have 5% free space, need 15% to defrag. Do you want to defrag anyway? Should I defrag anyway?

 

[Guest]

The question was ask if me hard drive was partitioned? How can I tell? I have 512 memory. I am using a Compaq, Evo D500 small forms factor computer. Win xp pro. pentium whatever thet means.