How to free disk space to "Local Disk?"

  • Thread starter The Bman
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The Bman

The Bman

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I need help adding space to my hard drive so I can install games and what not. Even if I remove files (such as old games) from my computer the drive LOSES free space. I did disk cleanup and disk defragment and still nothing. Even Rollback RX!

Is their anything I can do to free up space? I am using Windows XP with AMD Turion64 X2.
 
I emptied the Recycling Bin, so that's out.

That's too bad that I can't free up space.
 
If you need more drive space, just pick up another drive. If you're not interested in spending $260, there are less expensive options, obviously, but you can't magically create drive space that doesn't exist.
 
260 DOLLARS?!

*looks at the website*

Oh, a 3 TB drive. Makes sense.

Just get a new hard drive if you can. Unless you want to compress all your files and folders to "save" space, there's not a lot you can really do.....
 
@Submerged - Compression only works if I restore the computer entirely to a clean slate, which is last resort for me.

@CrashBandicoot - Disk Cleanup doesn't work either. It only uses more space as I use it. Odd, huh?
 
Have you tried what I recommended. Also what capacity is your hard drive and how much free space is remaining. Maybe Rollback RX is causing this and you should get rid of that.
 
saidur_ali
Have you tried what I recommended. Also what capacity is your hard drive and how much free space is remaining. Maybe Rollback RX is causing this and you should get rid of that.
Click to expand...

Should I clear the "screenshots" that have been taken at least?

I have around 8.13 GB left. Still plenty but still little.

Also, I will use CCleaner shortly. Wish me hope.
 
Stormtrooper217
Should I clear the "screenshots" that have been taken at least?

I have around 8.13 GB left. Still plenty but still little.

Also, I will use CCleaner shortly. Wish me hope.
Click to expand...

I would try and get rid of the software completely or at least get rid of the snapshots you don't need. Why do you need this software anyway? It would be better to have any important information stored on an external hard drive so if you have problems, you can do a fresh install.

Also do this: http://www.winxptutor.com/srclear.htm
 
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Ok, so CCleaner removed 7.18 MB.

Also, I need Rollback RX installed (VERY long story).
 
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7.18 MB? That was a waste of time, wasn't it?

Delete your browser's files.

Delete any folders in Windows that start with a $ sign. Those are there so you can uninstall an update, which these days is never necessary.

If you have several user login on your PC, remove unused logins and delete their files.

Do you have some kind of backup software that's backing up C: drive to itself somehow? Saving backups to a folder on the drive being backed up will eat the drive quickly.
 
Stormtrooper217
Ok, so CCleaner removed 7.18 MB.

Also, I need Rollback RX installed (VERY long story).
Click to expand...

Have you tried doing the last thing I mentioned then. If it is enabled then it should free up quite a lot of space. Also did you do a fresh install of XP SP3 or updated to XP SP3 through service pack updates?
 
Ok, so I now have 41.8 GB to use. I did the system restore thing that Saidur said and I think that fixed it.

Thanks for all your help guys, I appreciate it! :)👍
 
Trying something which college provided me with called "TuneUpUtilities2012" it's VERY good.
 
wfooshee
Delete any folders in Windows that start with a $ sign. Those are there so you can uninstall an update, which these days is never necessary.
Click to expand...

Never say never. Sometimes an update could mess up your system.
 
Stormtrooper217
Ok, so I now have 41.8 GB to use. I did the system restore thing that Saidur said and I think that fixed it.

Thanks for all your help guys, I appreciate it! :)👍
Click to expand...

If a System Restore fixed it, then you had a runaway registry. You don't see that very often, but I did see one machine with a >30GB user.dat file.
 
I use a program called 'WinDirStat' to see what is chewing up space. Small. Free. And really good.

windirstat.jpg
 
I've been using a program called Diskfan, which does something similar to what Casio's suggested app does... But I think his does it better.

Time to investigate.
 
I remember when something like this happened to me. I once left my phone plugged into my computer overnight; I came back the next morning to no disk space. The phone's software had created a 500gb file :lol: Took me half an hour to find the bugger.
 
One main issue you most likely have is your WinSxS folder, mine is 6.4GB but I have seen higher.

And you can't just delete the files inside either.
 
I just cleared 5.5GB with ccleaner. Thanks Casio, checking what I can do with that tool now.

Now this is of a slightly different topic, but I don't feel the need for a new thread. I just installed winrar yesterday and accidently set it as default for zip files during setup. I then went to set it back to explorer but accidently set it for rar files via a rar file in the same folder. Now when I try to open a rar file Explorer goes all whacky and I can't undo this setting. The option for the default program is now blanked out and completely invisible in properties. Can anyone give me a solution to this?
 

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