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Post by Ally on Jan 29, 2011 10:59:14 GMT
I still desperately need to free up some space on my computer, but I've deleted all the unnecessary files and programmes, and it's made no difference (in fact, I'm now down to 0% space left on my hard drive instead of 5%, which makes no sense to me). I do have the option of compressing my C drive - does that make things more difficult to access, or will it all run the same as before? Or is there anything else I can do to make some space?
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Post by X'o'Lore on Jan 29, 2011 17:22:41 GMT
If it was me, I'd get a bigger hard drive. If it's a laptop I'd get a little case to plug the second drive in externally and get some cloning software that can copy the contents of one drive to another. Then I'd swap the disks so the original was now an external and the larger one was internal.
Laptops make stuff complicated.
As for where the 5% went, a lot of programs keep temporary data on you main drive, including browsers. Your browsing history can fill a fair bit of space real quick if you start watching youtube clips and such.
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Post by Ally on Jan 29, 2011 17:35:15 GMT
Yeah, I think it might be external hard drive buying time...I was hoping to hold it off till I was ready to build a new computer. Eh well.
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Post by tangent on Jan 30, 2011 2:13:45 GMT
Try defragging your drive as well.
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Post by X'o'Lore on Jan 30, 2011 6:58:58 GMT
With all due respect, defragging wouldn't actually help. It doesn't reduce the amount of space used on a drive.
There are two possibilities here: either Ally has some evil malware on her computer that turned it into a zombie and is consuming all her hard drive space to store bits of files (I've seen that happen) or she just has a sort of small drive and has filled it to capacity through ordinary means. Regardless of which is the case, defragging will solve nothing. In the latter case, the only good solution is a new hard drive. The former case is a different sort of devil, and the solution could potentially be trickier, but free. (Well, free if you can fix it yourself)
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Post by Emily on Jan 30, 2011 9:51:07 GMT
ally how much tv/films have you got on there? write all that to disk and delete.
any footloose WIP files you can delete, I've got them all archived on my external drive
Seeing as you write rather than draw like me... i can't imagine what is taking up so much space, word files are comparatively tiny to media ones.
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Post by Ally on Jan 30, 2011 10:09:25 GMT
Tried to defrag, but my computer throws a hissy fit if I have less than 15% space on my hard drive before I try.
I have no films or TV at all, never have on this computer, that's what's weird - and I've deleted a bunch of Footloose files, except the ones I need to keep the colours consistent for the latest pages. The only thing I can think of that involves largish files is music, but I don't have all that much - yeah, I just checked, and I have 11GB of music, which, since my hard drive has a capacity of 100GB (it's an old computer), shouldn't be a problem.
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Post by stokerino on Jan 30, 2011 10:15:35 GMT
Yeah. You need to look around your folders (right-click -> Properties) and see where the space is actually going. Check the Program Files, check everything. Defragging will do NOTHING. It only assists computer speed (and only very slightly when the hard drive is full anyway). If you do want to get an external hard drive, I highly recommend the Seagate Freeagent Go. Lovely little things - we've just bought our second one of them. 320GB, £62500GB, £68
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Post by Emily on Jan 31, 2011 8:25:24 GMT
tim, where was it you found all that shit on my computer? wasn't it somewhere completely dumb like 25gb of interent temp files or something?
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Post by tangent on Jan 31, 2011 16:30:36 GMT
Have you clicked on the wastebasket icon on the front page and told it to empty? Until you do, it will continue to take up space on your system.
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Post by Ally on Jan 31, 2011 18:43:15 GMT
Have you clicked on the wastebasket icon on the front page and told it to empty? Until you do, it will continue to take up space on your system. Dude, I may be a Luddite, but I'm not a moron.
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Post by Emily on Feb 5, 2011 19:54:44 GMT
When I'm back I'll take a look at it for you... There's no way it should be that full
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Post by stokerino on Feb 5, 2011 23:29:07 GMT
tim, where was it you found all that shit on my computer? wasn't it somewhere completely dumb like 25gb of interent temp files or something? Possibly...but that should be dealt with via the Disk Cleanup. ... You *have* run Disk Cleanup, right Ally? >_>
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Post by Ally on Feb 6, 2011 8:57:41 GMT
Like I said - Luddite, not a moron. I run disc cleanup pretty much every day. Seriously, guys, I am not THAT bad with computers, I'm just not as good as you lot.
I have managed to free up a little more space since then - I found that my computer was keeping a cache of iPlayer files, which I didn't realise it would do (I thought the whole point of iPlayer was that you delete it/it deletes itself, it's gone). But I still only have 8% space.
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Post by Ally on Feb 23, 2011 19:29:58 GMT
I'm trying to find Rich Hall's How the West Was Lost online (I couldn't watch it when it was on, because my stupid digibox doesn't pick up any of the BBC channels - and it's not on iPlayer) - but everywhere I try seems to involve downloading a load of codecs and then finding out I can't play it anyway. Any suggestions?
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Post by Ally on Feb 23, 2011 19:41:45 GMT
Apologies for the double (well, triple) post - I've found out what's eating up my hard drive space - it's my Norton 360 backup, which for some bizarre reason totals 75GB (ie 75% of my hard drive). Since I've got everything I need backed up on my memory stick, how do I delete this safely?
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Post by X'o'Lore on Feb 23, 2011 20:00:38 GMT
Regarding the codec issue, I'd recommend VLC. It's fairly lightweight and plays practically every video and audio file you'll ever find. Good to hear you found your issue with the space. I was a little confused by that. You don't seem the sort who'd fill a 100GB space. You'll probably have to open up norton and dig around in the settings to try and clear out that space cleanly. I'm not a fan of Norton myself and have avoided their products for many years. As such I'm not really familiar with anything Norton anymore, so I can't really offer much for help with that. Actually I don't run security or backup software at all. Never had much need of it.
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Post by Emily on Feb 23, 2011 20:43:30 GMT
delete norton right now... microsoft security essentials or avg will do a better job on less memory
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Post by Ally on Feb 23, 2011 22:22:44 GMT
Cool, I'll have a look into them...I've deleted all the backup files, things are working fine and I have 67% space, which is much more like it.
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Post by Emily on Mar 2, 2011 12:13:42 GMT
Okay another PC question. Mine is behaving extremely slowly since I replaced the graphics card. I've got two theories- either the pC repair guys lied and replaced it with a sub-par card, or the graphics card is now too powerful fro the RAM. Anyone want to tell me which they think would be more likely or advance any other theories?
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