Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full

Subject: Tech: Computer , Disc C Nearly Full
From: Shaneo
Date: 15 Feb 07 - 02:08 PM

I'd say that this is a common problem but one I could not find an answer to on computer forums.
It's about disc C on my computer , it's almost full [Total space 27.9 free space 2.69] what happens when it's full ?
Will my P.C. stop running ?
There is lots of space on disc D , Total space 83.8 Free space 80.1.
I have been told I could transfer the 'My Documents' folder to Disc D as this would free up space on Disc C ,as most saved items go to the 'My Doc. ' folder. well I have done this but I was left with the 'My Documents' folder on Dis C and a copy of it went to Disc D.

There has to be a way to transfer some programmes to disc D to free up space.
I have done the disc defragmenter and disc clean up and gained no more free space.
Any help please .

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer , Disc C Nearly Full
From: Joe Offer
Date: 15 Feb 07 - 02:59 PM

I had the same problem, Shaneo. My computer had a 15 gigabyte C:\ sector, and 65 on the D:\ sector. One it got down below 2 gigs free, it seemed there was marked slowdown in performance, and it would frequently fill up to the point where I had only 500 megabytes free. I really worked hard to put as much stuff on my D:\ drive as I could, but Windows XP seemed to keep putting things on C:\ - maintaining that hard drive got to be a constant housecleaning task.

Yeah, I know, I could have used a Norton program to move the partition, but my D:\ drive wasn't all that big, either. Shaneo, I'm guessing that you have the same general setup I had, but that you haven't used your D:\ drive at all. Perhaps you should go to Control Panel and uninstall some programs (making sure you have the original installation disks), and reinstall them on D:\. Another possibility is to get a program like Norton Partition Magic and move your hard drive partition to make C:\ bigger - since you have lots of room on the D:\ partition. If you don't know computers, you might want to ask a friend to help you the first time you move a partition. I have to admit, I haven't moved a partition myself yet and I'm a bit afraid to.

So, what I did was squeak by until Windows Vista came out, and then I used the new operating system and my overfilled hard drive as an excuse to spend a thousand bucks on a new computer with HDTV and 500 gigabytes of hard drive.

Moving to a new computer is something akin to moving to a new house, but the job is more-or-less done, and I like Windows Vista and really like Office 2007. And the new computer isn't sluggish like the old one. I corrupted a database and can't use a Quattro Pro spreadsheet and I still don't have the high-definition TV in the computer working, so I have more tinkering to do.

But yeah, I think a filled-up hard drive might be an indication it's time for a new computer. A new hard drive isn't all that hard to install, but there are risks and hassles involved. I could have spend four hundred bucks and gotten a computer far better then the one I had, but I decided to spend a thousand and get one that would fit my needs longer. I supposed that's buying into "planned obsolescence," but I've been very happy with the advances in every computer upgrade I've done in my 20 years of using computers.

What will happen when your computer is full? Well, I think Windows will do its best to try to stop you from doing that. It was giving me warnings all the time, once I got below one gigabyte.
-Joe-

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer , Disc C Nearly Full
From: jeffp
Date: 15 Feb 07 - 03:05 PM

If you have never emptied your Recycle Bin, try that first. Right-click on the Recycle Bin icon on your desktop and select Empty Recycle Bin. Then see how much space you have now. Then, if you need more space (and you probably will), do the copy of the My Documents folder or any other folder that is taking up a lot of space (Audio files and video files are the worst offenders. You probably don't want to move any program files.).

After you have copied the folder to Disk D, you must delete the contents from Disk C. You do this by selecting them and either pressing the delete key, right-clicking and selecting Delete, or dragging them to the Recycle Bin. Then right-click on the Recycle Bin and empty it. You will then have that space back on your C drive.

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: artbrooks
Date: 15 Feb 07 - 03:15 PM

Also, you may have some/many programs that you never use, and you don't even realize that are there...and some of them are real space hogs. Open "Start>My computer>Control Panel>Add or Remove Programs" and see what is there that you don't recognize - but be aware that the "last use on (date)" that you will see when you click on specific programs isn't all that accurate.

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: Bill D
Date: 15 Feb 07 - 04:26 PM

There is a not often recognized trick also...in 'most' cases, if you hold down 'shift' when you delete something, it bypasses the recycling bin....This is especially useful when deleting a large batch of files at the same time using a file manager.

Also, a lot of stuff can build up in certain temporary folders.

see this guide, or try This program

You can also get an extra external drive to save stuff to....and no matter what, you should have **SOME** way to backup your comouter in case of a crash.

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: 12string growler
Date: 15 Feb 07 - 04:56 PM

Have you ever emptied your "Temporary Internet Files" folder. If not, this is where you will find your biggest gain.

Open Internet Explorer 7. If you have the menu's showing, click on TOOLS, then on the pull down menu click INTERNET OPTIONS (new window opens)and then on DELETE in the BROWSING HISTORY section of this new window. Another window opens, then work your way down the various DELETE buttons, or use the DELETE ALL button at the bottom of this window if you don't have any saved passwords.

If the menu's don't show in IE7, Right click to the right of the TABs in a clear area of the TAB BAR and click on MENU BAR (puts a tick against it) in the selection box that appears

This clearing out proces might take several minutes so don't panic.

If you are still on IE6 the process is similar enough to not get lost and will still take a fair old time. (Silver Surfer's memory stops me remembering the detail for IE6)

Hope this helps.

Chris

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 15 Feb 07 - 04:58 PM

Move the default location of "My DOcs" to D.
Move the default location of your psts (if you use OUtlook rahter than Outlook Express) to inside My DOcs - that way you jsut back up "My DOcs".

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 15 Feb 07 - 05:54 PM

What will happen if the disk gets full isn't necessarily that the computer will stop running; but you won't have any place to put the results of what it does, and it will run very slowly.

With the disk size and free space noted, you probably already have a partially crippled machine.

1. The machine needs "temp space" on your hard drive to store parts of the programs it's running, and by default the temp space is always on the same drive where the system program is installed, which is nearly always on C:\. From the size of your drives alone, it would be reasonable to assume you're running Win98 or WinME(?). Both of these normally will only use program temp space that's in a continuous and contiguous single "clump" on your hard drive. They won't jump from one open space to the next if they run out of space. They'll just shuffle program bits around more - which slows things down, sometimes a whole lot. That's one of the reasons why it's VERY IMPORTANT if you don't have a lot of free space on the System Hard Drive (C:\ usually) that you DEFRAGMENT the drive fairly often, so that all the "empty" space is in one, or a few, larger clumps rather than splattered around all over the disk.

2. Defrag requires, usually, that at least 10% of the drive be free space, since it has to have someplace to put the bits while it's shuffling things around to put all the pieces together properly. You may already have reached the point where you CAN'T defrag, unless/until you move some files off the C:\ drive.

3. As has been suggested, emptying your Recycle folder may help some, but generally Windows has a default maximum Recycle bin size that's not really too large, and when the bin gets full the new stuff pushes older stuff out.

4. The "My Documents" folder is the default place where things you save get stuffed. Because Windows assumes it will be on the System Drive, if you remove it from C:\ and make a new one on D:\ you may find that Windows just makes another one on C:\ when it, or some other program, decides to store something in it. There's no real problem with having both a D:\My Documents and a C:\My Documents, except that you may have to look in both to find something that you saved without checking where it was being sent.

5. You can, theoretically at least, tell Windows that "My Documents" is located on another drive, but other programs may assume that it's on C:\ until you've told each of them about the new location. For this reason, it may be safer to leave C:\My Documents there, and just move all the files that were in it to a new D:\My Documents folder, until you're fairly sure that all your programs got the message.

6. Assuming that you have one or more Microsoft Office Programs, the setting for ALL Office programs generally is in Word. If you set a place to store documents in Word, all other Office programs usually will "inherit" the same location for their files. (In Word, Tools | Options, File Locations Tab.) Other programs, especially non-Microsoft ones, may need to be adjusted individually.

7. You indicated that you "moved" My Documents to D:\ but still have a My Documents on C:\. This implies that you may have Copied the folder rather than moving it. If you're sure that everything got copied, you could just delete everything in the C:\My Documents folder. A safer method would be:

a. In Windows Explorer, click on C:\My Documents in the left panel.
b. Click anywhere in the right panel and "Edit | Select All." (or Ctl-A)
c. Edit | Cut (or Ctl-X)
d. Go to the D:\ drive and click on D:\My Documents in the left panel.
e. Edit | Paste (or Ctl-V)

If a file is already in the D:\My Documents folder, you'll get a popup that asks if you want to replace it. Since the one you've selected is the same file as the one already copied, you can say "Yes to All" and Win Explorer will copy them all again but will DELETE each one from C:\My Documents as it's pasted into D:\My Documents. The "insurance factor" is that any file in C:\My Documents that wasn't already in D:\My Documents will also be copied, and you should end up with everything in D:\My Documents and an empty C:\My Documents.

8. Once you've made some space on C:\, you should go to Start | Programs | Accessories | System Tools and run Disk Cleanup followed by Defragment. Disk Cleanup (it used to be called ChkDsk?) should get rid of trash and temp files. If there's an option, you should let it "automatically fix errors." Defrag is needed as indicated at item 1.

9. If you decide to move anything other than "data files" to D:\, you really should uninstall programs and then reinstall them to the new location. Use Control Panel | Add/Remove Programs to uninstall any that are listed there, and look for an "uninstall" or "remove" file in the program folder for removing any others. There are some utility programs that claim to be able to move files without going through the uninstall/reinstall routine, and sometimes they work, but of course if you're already short on disk space installing another program may not be your best move, unless you really feel it's necessary.

'nuff for now?

John

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 15 Feb 07 - 06:18 PM

"You indicated that you "moved" My Documents to D:\ but still have a My Documents on C:\."

Moving My Documents.

In Win98

use TweakUI - you have to have downloaded and installed it - it wasn't a standard thing - dunno where you will find it now.

The My Computer Tab allows you to twiddle where things like My Documents will be seen by the system - Tweak UI allowed you to twiddle these things without using Registry Hacks.

I moved several things, including my Desktop to other drives.


"Disk Cleanup (it used to be called ChkDsk?) "

Sorry, 2 different things.
CHKDSK fixes any lost clusters, etc.
It SHOULD be run before attempting to run DEFRAG.


You can put the TEMP DIR on another drive by putting in the AUTOEXEC.BAT file

SET Path="X:\TEMP";%Path%
where X is the desired drive
otherwise it likes to live in C:\WIN\TEMP or thereabouts, somewhere you never think to look to clean it out. Many things leave heaps of crap there - they are SUPPOSED to be deleted, but often never are.
You can break very little by emptying it.

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 15 Feb 07 - 07:04 PM

Of possible interest to people still working with older Windows versions:

DEW Associates

An accidental encounter while searching for something else found these guys. They claim to be computer builders and consultants, but don't seem to have heard of anything after Win2000. They still have very clear instructions on how to install Win95 in their Knowledge Center, along with some apparently thorough indexes to Microsoft KB articles on some of the exotics of Win98SE and Win2K - much easier than searching them out for yourself at the KB, if it's what you need.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: Gulliver
Date: 16 Feb 07 - 10:32 AM

I simply burn most of my audio, picture and document files onto CDs, then delete them from the hard drive. I downloaded a freebie program called Visual CD that enables me to index the CDs that I burn, so if I'm looking for anything I need only search the index to find which of my 50-odd CDs it is stored on.

This method has the added advantage that I can take the CDs anywhere.

At the last count I think I had 19,000 files on CDs.

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: Shaneo
Date: 16 Feb 07 - 11:47 AM

I have tried a few of the ideas posted and have gained a small amount of disc space.
I think it may be the amount of songs I have on Windows Media Player and Itunes,1000s
The music files seem to take up a lot of valuable space,
Time for a big clean out I think.
With the disc D being much bigger than disc C why the hell does everything get thrown into disc C by default.

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 16 Feb 07 - 11:52 AM

Because you didn't tell it to do something different.

Have you considered dragging and dropping from C: to D: using Windows Explorer?

START -> Accessories -> Windows Explorer. While you're at it, right click the Win Explorer line and do a "send to" your desktop where you have it handy to use regularly.

SRS

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: Shaneo
Date: 16 Feb 07 - 11:58 AM

SRS , how will sending windows explorer to the desktop gain more space for me ?

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: Nick
Date: 16 Feb 07 - 12:37 PM

Have you thought of an external extra drive.

I bought a 320GB USB external hard drive for £80 recently - storage is relatively cheap these days

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 16 Feb 07 - 12:46 PM

I second the external hard drive suggestion. I bought a (?) Western Digital external hard drive from Amazon (you can suss them out on their website & see the customer feedback, which has been positive). You'd be able to offload your C-drive contents onto it, and then start filling it up all over again again! Burning onto CD-ROM as a additional method of backup/storage is a good idea too, and is easy & cheap.

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 16 Feb 07 - 12:51 PM

Sending it to the desktop makes it available to easily use. That was an aside to the directions to find the program. Have you used it? You can drag folders and all of those files into the D: drive with it.

External hard drives are inexpensive these days, but why get one when you have 80 gig free on D:?

SRS

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: artbrooks
Date: 16 Feb 07 - 01:37 PM

The utility of an external drive depends a lot on the capacity of the PC. Dell tells me that my circa 2002 computer has a maximum capacity of 100 gig on all hard drives, internal and external.

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: IvanB
Date: 16 Feb 07 - 01:48 PM

To move files in WinXP and, if I remember correctly, in Win98 (I don't remember as far back as Win95), you can open two Explorer windows on the screen, one with the source directory and the other with the destination. Then right click on the selected files and drag them to the destination window. A dialogue box will open asking you what you want to do "Copy here," "Move here" or "Create shortcut here." Select "move" and the system will copy the files to the destination and delete them from the source. The destination disk must be a hard drive for this to work. If the destination is a removable drive Windows defaults to a copy operation.

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 16 Feb 07 - 04:58 PM

"With the disc D being much bigger than disc C why the hell does everything get thrown into disc C by default. "
"Because you didn't tell it to do something different. "

That's what my post of 15 Feb 07 - 06:18 PM was about

After you have told Windoze to look elsewhere, - from memory, it's been a while since I needed to do it (and I'm talking about the PC!) you need to move the files from the old dir to the new dir as well.

It all seems a bit messy, but once you have moved things, it works ok.

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 16 Feb 07 - 05:03 PM

PS

If a file is open you can't move it - you will need to copy it, then when you have rebooted, you can delete it from the old place.

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: Gulliver
Date: 16 Feb 07 - 05:55 PM

How is the external hard drive connected to the PC? I'd like to get one, but my USB port is not working, so if it's connected over the USB I wouldn't be able to use it.

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 16 Feb 07 - 06:03 PM

I was left with the 'My Documents' folder on Disc C and a copy of it went to Disc D.

So the stuff you want is safe on Disc D, and you don't need the original any more - you just delete the contents of My Documents on Disc C, and you have that space to play with.

(And to avoid confusion you can always change the name of My Documents on DiscD to something else "Old Documents" or something.

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 16 Feb 07 - 06:05 PM

artbrooks -

I'm a bit puzzled by a limit on total hard drive space. Never heard of such an animal. Various Windows versions have different limits on the maximum size of a single hard drive, and on the maximum size of a partition on a hard drive, but since DOS 3.1 days (ca. 25 years ago?) I've never heard of a PC that couldn't find 26 "drives" and each one is independent so far as the operating system knows.

Assuming that you're using IDE (or EIDE) drives, you can't install more than one IDE controller at a time in a computer (without exceptional effort) and the controller is limited to 4 "devices."

Using USB external drives, the only limit should be the number of USB channels, and you can cascade USB port switches (hubs) almost indefinitely, subject to the 26 drive limit.

Does your computer have a model number?

general:

Older Windows versions and the drives available when they came out had limits on maximum partition sizes that did require partitioning of the larger hard drives that were available then. Newer drives, and patches to the OSs have expanded the limits somewhat, but with an obsolete OS you may need to partition.

With WinXP the partition/drive limit is 32 TB, so it's unlikely anyone is really going to need to break a drive up into many partitions. UNLESS you are using multi-boot to more than one OS, there is NO REASON that you have to partition a hard drive if you're running WinXP and if you use FAT32 or NTFS format on the drive(s).

You can isolate your documents and other "produced" files just by making a folder to put them in, and you'll generally get better performance out of the machine if you don't partition the drive.

Once you go past 160GB or so, you may find that some maintenance tasks like defrag etc take a rather long time, and if you want to partition to do the tasks incrementally on one "drive" (partition) at a time, there's no real harm in it.

and:

Some suggestions that might help our victim friend Shaneo would be a lot easier if we knew what Operating System is being used. I could have missed it, but I don't think we've been told. (????)

John

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 16 Feb 07 - 11:48 PM

Gulliver,

The external drives use the USB2 or the firewire. If your USB isn't working or you want to add more or firewire, you can get cards to add to the back and probably can get replacements for the ones that don't work, depending on where they're placed. You need to look at the insides to see they're connected properly first before you pronounce them dead.

I have a little device that turns one USB into four, and it plugs in to give it more power. You'll find all sorts of options if you visit a computer electronic store. Don't be afraid to get under the hood to modify the computer (but don't do it on a dry day with static electricity on your hands).

SRS

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: Shaneo
Date: 17 Feb 07 - 07:07 AM

Thanks for all the help , I use Windows XP ,
I have moved some files to disc D but the files
were still on disc C , so when I delete a file
from disc C it also gets deleted from disc D.
It would seem I need to be spoon-fed the information
for transferring files/programmes.

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 17 Feb 07 - 07:15 AM

"so when I delete a file from disc C it also gets deleted from disc D."


ooooo, that shouldn't happen... but I don't know XP...

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: artbrooks
Date: 17 Feb 07 - 09:02 AM

John, it is a Dell Dimension 4300, running XP over ME. Dell is now (as of 5 minutes ago) saying that each drive is limited to 100GB.

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 17 Feb 07 - 11:09 AM

artbrooks -

I'll have to look some stuff up, but the quick question is whether it's a desktop or laptop. If it's a laptop, the internal space may not have allowed for a larger drive when it was built, and they may have buggered "customized" the BIOS in a way that does limit availability of larger internal drives. If it's a desktop, even if they left out the goodies to support larger drives, you should be able to get a BIOS update from the chip maker. That may be a more major change than you want to tackle; but it should be the sort of thing that can be done if you want to.

Updating the BIOS is a fairly major step, and it must be done exactly according to instructions, but it's not really all that difficult IF there's an update available.

I have an old Dell Latitude laptop with a 30GB plug-in HD, and I can't get a much larger plug-in (internal) HD from Dell, but it has no problem with my several 160GB USB External drives.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 17 Feb 07 - 12:29 PM

Shaneo -

What you're describing is not a WinXP behaviour that people see normally. The only way I can see it happening is if you used the "File | Send To" command. There are several places to get to it; but the effect of the "Send To" is that it doesn't make a copy of the file at the destination, it just puts a shortcut there that points back to the original file at its original location. If you delete the original file, the shortcut doesn't work anymore, and a cleanup may delete the shortcut.

A shortcut is a small file that says only where a "real" file is. When you click (or double-click depending on your setup) on the shortcut, it tells the computer where the real file is located, and the computer opens it from the original location. I haven't noticed that the shortcut gets deleted automatically if the target (real) file is deleted, but that might happen in some cases. Deleting the shortcut DOES NOT delete the real file.

WinXP gives you multiple ways of doing lots of things. To be sure that you see the same thing seen by the person(s) offering advice, it is essential that you use the same method another person is talking about:

1. I'll assume that you have a printer. For long instructions it's a good idea to print the instructions so you can have them in front of you if you lose track of where they are on your computer. From a mudcat web page, you should be able to click and drag over a single post, and "print selection" directly from the web page to get only what you want printed.

2. I suggest that you use Windows Explorer to move your files. Until you get the file moving done, you'll be using it quite a lot, so you need an easy way to get it open.

2a. Either close or minimize anything that's open so that you have a clear view of your desktop.

2b. Click Start, Programs, Accessories, and look for Windows Explorer. WinXP likes to collapse menus and show only what you've used recently, so you may have to click on a "double chevron" or two to expand menus as you go. (like >> except usually pointing up or down).

2b. When you find Windows Explorer, RIGHT-CLICK on it, and on the menu that opens up click "Send to Desktop." This will put a shortcut on your desktop that you can click to open Windows Explorer whenever you need to. Click anywhere on the screen outside the expanded Start menus to close them and show the desktop. You'll probably see an icon that looks like a "file folder" on your desktop, with a label that says "shortcut to Windows Explorer.

2c. Desktop icons can get dragged around and reshuffled, so once you have identified the Win Explorer icon, I'd suggest that you right-click anywhere on the desktop that isn't an icon and click on "Sort Icons" and "by Name" to get everything lined up. Figure out where the Win Explorer icon goes so you'll be able to find when you need it.

3. Windows, and especially WinXP, offers multiple different layouts in Win Explorer, and having a different layout than the one who's giving instructions can result in confusion. I strongly suggest:

3a. Click, or double-click on the Win Explorer Icon to open Win Explorer.

3b. On the top bar you should see "Tools." Click "Tools" and then "Folder Options."

3c. Click on the "General" tab, if it doesn't open there, and click to put a "bullet" in the circle by "Use Windows Classic folders."

3d. Also on the "General" tab, at the bottom, click to put a bullet at "double-click to open an item (single click to select).

3e. Click on the button at the bottom marked "Apply."

3f. Click on the "View" tab. You should get a list of items with "checkboxes." Most of the first few will likely have checks in them. You need to make sure that there IS a check by "show hidden files and folders," and that there IS NOT a check by "hide extensions for known file types."

3g. Click the button at the top of the View tab that says "Apply to All Folders" and then click "OK" to close the tools menu.

4. You can use the separate "View" selection on the top tool bar to change what you see in Win Explorer.

4a. Click "View" and Click "Status Bar" so that it will show.

4b. You may have to click View again, to click at show "Details."

4c. You may have to click View again, then click on "Choose Details." You want check marks in the boxes for Name, Size, Type, and Date Modified.

You can change any of the above settings later to suite you own preferences; but if you set as indicated, we'll have a reasonable idea of what you're seeing when instructions are offered.

If all went well, your Wind Explorer should show a panel on the left with a "Folders" label, and a panel on the right that shows what's in the folder that is highlighted on the left.

The "My Documents" place on your computer has some peculiar features, mostly undocumented. I would suggest that you move all your "extra" files to a folder with a different name on your D:\ drive.

Click on the D:\ drive in the left panel of Win Explorer.

Click, at the top tool bar, on File, then New, then Folder. A new folder should open with a "box" arround it that indicates that you can type a name for the new folder. I would suggest typing something like "My New Documents" of "My D Documents" just to avoid duplicating the "My Documents" name.

The "folder name" will close the "editable" status when you hit Enter or when you click anywhere else. If you didn't get it right, in the Left pane you can right click and select "Rename." In the Right pane, you can click on it once, and then when you click again it will "open for renaming." (Just don't click so fast the computer mistakes it for a "double-click.")

Once your folder is in place on D:

1. Click on "My Documents" in the LEFT panel in Win Explorer.

2. Select the files you want to move in the RIGHT panel.

3. On the top tool bar, click on EDIT and then either COPY or CUT.

4. Click on the new folder where you want to put the files IN THE LEFT PANEL in Win Explorer, then click EDIT, PASTE.

"Control-C" does the same thing as clicking Edit - Copy.
"Control-X" does the same thing as clicking Edit - Cut.
"Control-V" does the same thing as clicking Edit - Paste.

If you Copy the files, the originals will remain where they are, and when you past you'll have a second copy of the files at the new location. If you don't want both copies, you can go back and select the files again in the original location and Delete them. Some people feel that Copy followed by Delete is "safer" than "Cut and Paste," although I've found either to be reliable if you follow the rules.

If you CUT the original files, as soon as each file is Pasted in the new location, the original file in the old location is deleted. If the Paste doesn't work, the original will be left where it was.

Let us know if you get the Copy/Cut/Paste routine figured out, and we may be able to help with some changes that will make new files go to your D:\ location automatically.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 17 Feb 07 - 01:41 PM

Artbrooks -

Dell doesn't give a lot of details, but the short verdict is that your Dell 4300 is really marginal to be running WinXP. Max RAM at 512MB is marginal but in spec. I'm not sure the processor speed is really "in spec," although it should limp along okay.

Dell does give a motherboard identification, but the chipset identification is "generic" and they don't indicate what BIOS chip is used. The 512 MB max memory probably indicates a BIOS without the augmented Int13H/Int21H capabilities needed for larger internal (EIDE) drives.

If you wanted to open up and look for the BIOS to get an exact identification, there might be a BIOS update, but the low RAM limit implies a "reelly cheep chip." While you might be able to replace the BIOS chip with a better compatible one, that's akin to building a new machine; and it's almost certainly not worth it given the other specs on the machine.

They do indicate that you've got USB connectors, but don't give any info on the internals for them. They almost certainly are USB-1, which will work okay with a USB-2 device plugged in, but will be rather slow. USB devices get power through the USB connector, and an external HD might draw enough to interfere with other USB devices on the same hub, if you have any connected. You could handle that with an external hub with its own power transformer if it's applicable (~$20? extra). WinXP should take care of the hub setup automagically via plug-n-play.

The machine has 4 PCI slots where you could plug in a USB-2 adapter card, but the "default" configuration shows them all used by original equipment devices. If you happened to "not get" one of the devices, you might have an open slot, but I'd doubt there is one available.

You should be able to use a larger EXTERNAL USB drive, since the interface built into the drive translates everything to something the computer can read. All the computer sees is "USB bits" going in and out. Without more detail on the built-in USB it's hard to guarantee anything, but if any USB devices work, a USB hard drive should, although in this case maybe s..l..o..w..l..y. because of the USB-1 port.

Worst case, if all else fails, you could find a friend with a more capable computer to partition a larger USB EXTERNAL drive into 100GB slices that your machine would see as several separate drives when you plug it back into your machine, although I don't think that would be necessary.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: Bernard
Date: 17 Feb 07 - 02:47 PM

Shaneo (and JiK), it's possible that you've (inadvertently?) set up the D drive folder to synchronise with the C drive folder.

That is normally only done on a server-based network for offline use... do the folders and files have funny looking twirly arrows on the icons?

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 17 Feb 07 - 04:20 PM

Creating mirror sets and/or striped sets requires using Computer Management snap-ins that aren't normally installed by/for most WinXP users - and can be difficult to get installed and working. It's hard to see how it could be done by accident, but most anything's possible I suppose.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 17 Feb 07 - 08:11 PM

oooooooo JohnInKansas

I DO like it when you get all pedantic.... :-)

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: Bernard
Date: 17 Feb 07 - 08:27 PM

As Murray Walker (used to be a motor racing commentator on British TV, infamous for his gaffes) once said... 'Anything can happen, and most probably will!'...

He also said (nothing to do with this thread, but hey!) 'the car he is driving is unique. Except, of course for that of his team mate, which is completely identical...!'

And the all-time classic...'Unless I'm very much mistaken...and I am very much mistaken'!!

Do a google for murray walker gaffes... they're hilarious - and all on tape somewhere!!

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 17 Feb 07 - 08:57 PM

If I were Shaneo I'd be terrified by all this helpful stuff.

The thing is - it may look dead complicated written out like that, but it's actually pretty straightforward.

One way to make life simpler would be to invest in an external hard drive - you could get one to hold 40 gigabytes for about £50. Then you can copy stuff onto that, and detach the drive from the computer. That way you know when you delete stuff on Drive C there is no way the stuff on the detached hard drive can be affected. Then you could copy that back onto Drive D if you wanted, into a folder you'd call "Old Documents" or something like that.

But I would think that you could just change the name of the file on Drive D from MY Documents to something else, and that would stop the problem you mention.

If for some reason that didn't work you could just copy everything in My Documents on Drive D into another folder on Drive D. Then if the PC deleted My Documents contents on Drive D at the same time as on Drive C that wouldn't matter, because the copy would be safe in the other folder you've made for it on Drive D.

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: GUEST,ashok,tezpur,india
Date: 18 Apr 08 - 02:45 AM

how can I copy offline web pages to browse later in another computer which is not having an internet connection

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: Darowyn
Date: 18 Apr 08 - 02:53 AM

I'm using Firefox here, but if you scroll up the the file menu, most browsers have a "save as a web page" command. Save it to a USB stick then put it into the other computer.
The unfortunate thing is that, with most web pages, it won't work properly.
The page you see contains items from several web addresses. You will find that the saved copy contains the addresses but not the contents.

It's probably easier to print the page (or the bits you want to read afterwards) and read it on paper.
Cheers
Dave

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 18 Apr 08 - 06:01 AM

In Internet Explorer, you have a choice of "Save as Web Page" or "Save as Archive." (Use the "Page" button on the IE7 toolbar, click "Save As" and then choose the format you want in the "Save as type" box.)

If you save as a web page (.htm) a page that has linked-in bits may be a file plus a folder for the linked stuff. It's easy to "break" the set when you try to move them from one machine - or even one drive - to another, and you can't easily rename the file to keep things sorted.

If you save as an "archive file" (.mht) it's all one file that can be moved around easily and can be renamed to anything you want.

Either form will open in your browser, whether you're off line or connected.

Other browsers should have much the same options, but I don't use anything except IE regularly.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 18 Apr 08 - 06:10 AM

Not quite what's asked for, I think, but wget is very handy for downloading web pages. Apparently it will run on Windows.

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: Gulliver
Date: 18 Apr 08 - 10:41 AM

Just to complete the information about Firefox: when you select Save Page As, you can choose to save as HTML only (which saves only the text portion of the page) or Web Page Complete (which saves the images, graphics, etc., as well as the text). This is similar to Explorer. Personally, I would never print out web pages.

Just one question to Firefox users: When I save a web page, for example, this thread, in Explorer, it displays the file name, which is the Title of the page, as defined in the (title) tag, and I only have to click on the Save button. Firefox doesn't display the Title, it displays "thread.cfm.htm", which I've then got to manually change to "Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full" or whichever name I want to give it. How can I make Firefox behave like Explorer, and use what's in the (title) tag as the default file name to be saved?

Don

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 18 Apr 08 - 02:17 PM

I almost never use "Save" for anything from the web, since that puts the file "wherever" - usually in the folder where I made the last save, which may be completely wrong for the new article.

Using "Save As" should show you the filename that will be used and the location where it's going to land.

If you see a useless title, with Save As you have the opportunity to type (or paste) something else before you click to do the save.

Some programs will let you access the page after you've opened a Save As dialog, where you can highlight, Ctl-C, and Ctl-V to paste the thread name in the Save As box. Other programs may use a different kind of box that "locks you in" so that you'd have to copy the title before you click on the Save As button.

Even with IE, some sites (who should know better) use the same default file name for anything you copy/download from the site. (The "Save Target As" for .pdf files seems especially prone to this.) This seems to happen quite regularly on sites that use JScript "calls," but I haven't bothered to probe all the possible causes.

Another reason for consistently using "Save As" rather than just "Save" is that IE fairly frequently "defaults" the file type for the save back to .htm, and I much prefer having everything in the .mht (Save as Archive Single File Web Page) since that format is much more stable on your machine.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: Gulliver
Date: 18 Apr 08 - 09:31 PM

I'm not sure that you understood my question. Where is the Save command in IE or Firefox? I'm only familiar with a Save As or Save Page As. And if you use Ctrl/S it will default to Save As.

The point I'm trying to make is that IE will automatically display, as File Name in the Save As box, what's in the (title)(/title) tag so all you have to do is click on Save and you've saved it with an understandable name, which also happens to be the name that is displayed in the Mudcat TOC (which is what I want). I've been happily using this method for years in IE for saving thousands of web pages, and web-site rippers that I've used have similar behaviour. This method falls down, of course, if the web-page developer has neglected to place anything in the (title)(/title) tag, but in my experience this is a tiny percentage.

Now, why does Firefox break with tradition and display, for example, "thread.cfm.htm" in every Save As box for Mudcat pages? Though I'm a fast typist, having to continually type in a new file name when I'm saving dozens of files is a bit of a drag. I'm a newbie to Firefox, but I'm sure there must be some way of changing this.

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 18 Apr 08 - 11:39 PM

Gulliver

There are several extensions for FireFox which allow the 'expected normal' save as action. One is 'TitleSave', but there are several. You only need one of them.

Click on Tools - Extensions, then you will see 'Get more extensions' - search to your heart's content!

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: Gulliver
Date: 19 Apr 08 - 12:09 AM

Thanks! Will try that out...

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 19 Apr 08 - 05:02 AM

Tok me ages to work that out - and nobody I asked could tell m

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 19 Apr 08 - 06:28 AM

Where is the Save command in IE or Firefox?

I can't speak to Firefox, but in IE the "File" button has both "Save" and "Save As" on the dropdown list. On web pages, the "Save" usually is "grayed out" and unusable - something to do with "you're not the creator so you don't have edit rights," or something of the sort.

The difficulty is that for IE7, by default the "Menu Bar" where you used to find "File" is turned off. You have to go to the "tools cockleburr" at the right end of the main bar to turn on the toolbar (put a check at "Menu bar") to get the standard File Edit View etc buttons.

In IE7 you can also click on the "Page" button, next to the "Tools," and the dropdown has "Save As" on it, although "Save" doesn't appear there.

I find the "Save As" very much preferable to the straight "Save," since I always want to put the saved item in the right place in the 7,587 folders on my "scratch disk" where I keep notes on my web browsing. Since web pages come in a few different formats, Save As also lets me confirm that I'm going to get a stable .mht file and not a bucketful of files and folders with corruptible links.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: Gulliver
Date: 19 Apr 08 - 09:31 AM

Thanks John and Foolstroupe for the feedback. I'm going to stick with Firefox for the forseeable future. I think I'll download some information on it to my laptop and take it with me to peruse when I go on my holidays to the (hopefully) sunny south of Italy next week. Don

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: Bill D
Date: 19 Apr 08 - 10:21 AM

One of the most amazing *FREE* programs for PC is WinHTTrack. It will get a website to almost any degree of completeness you wish.

If you use it be SURE you set parameters correctly and have enough space.

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: Gulliver
Date: 19 Apr 08 - 09:02 PM

My application of choice for the past few years for downloading web sites is Webreaper, but just as you recommend for WinHTTrack, parameters have to be set correctly, otherwise it tries to download the entire web (which would mean I'd have to get a bigger computer!). Don

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 20 Apr 08 - 12:35 AM

With all the downloading and saving being done, and with people getting larger and larger drives to save more and more stuff, has anyone calculated:

Does the time required to transfer a TB of data to a new drive exceed the "Mean Time Before Failure" (MTBF) currently quoted by manufacturers for their big hard drives?

And if the drive lasts long enough to fill it, does it also live long enough to recover anything from it after it's filled?

(On average, of course)

John

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: Nick E
Date: 20 Apr 08 - 12:41 AM

Just delete the 99% of the crap, that you do not need, but still have

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: GUEST,goodlife
Date: 20 Apr 08 - 04:02 AM

hi all this tachnical stuf is great but it is an easy one to solve copy all your music from c to d open my music click file or a folder once to highlight it press the keys Ctrl and A together or select all then right click on the menu choose copy then goto my computor select the d drive open it right click on the window select new folder right click the new folder and select rename name it my music 2 then open the folder right click the window and select paste all your music is now on your d drive {if a file or folder icon as a little black arrow stuck on it it means that it is only a shortcut} and now for the fun side windows media player will not be able to find them so goto media player click menu   tools delete all files on the window that opens make sure that remove all files from media player only is checked goto my music folder and delete all files goto media player on menu select find media files it will put them back

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 20 Apr 08 - 01:54 PM

So it's non-tech if you repeat what someone else has said but omit all the punctuation so that it's unintelligible?

It does pose an interesting question: whether "technical stuff" is defined by whether it contains any information or whether it conveys any information.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: Bill D
Date: 20 Apr 08 - 03:50 PM

*sigh*...I will NEVER understand what goes on in a mind that cannot be bothered to use punctuation in typing.

Not only that, but as I 'tried' to read that post, it bacame clear that 'goodlife' has VERY little comprehension of what is actually useful and sensible.

It takes all kinds, I guess.

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 21 Apr 08 - 06:06 AM

Sincerity - learn to fake it if you want to be an Actor.

Geek Speak - learn to fake it if you want to be a (Pseudo) Computer Tech...

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: GUEST,good life
Date: 21 Apr 08 - 02:09 PM

ah for the t#echnical side of things and thank god for the punctuation side of things. but do you know if any body else can understand you ,if you have got degrees an all that it's easy but us down to earth people dont' understand a word you are saying so what good is that no help at all so you are wasting your time answering the question .You so called boffins i was teaching an old lady to use a computor she wanted to copy a file and i said right click the file and select copy ,she sat at the computor and typed CLICK. There are still people out there that do not understand COMPUTORS ,put your feet back on the ground and listen to someone else for a change

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: GUEST,Shaneo not logged in
Date: 21 Apr 08 - 02:24 PM

Just a quick follow up from my original thread, soon after taking all that great advice my computer crashed, the whole thing got messed up and windows had to be reinstalled, it was the best thing that could have happened as all the junk I accumulated was gone and when it was repaired it was like a new computer.
Lucky enough I had copied much of my songs to hard-drive-D and was able to retrieve everything of value.

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 21 Apr 08 - 03:28 PM

Having had five hard drive TOTAL FAILURES in the past couple of years, I've become a firm believer in regular backups.

Having had one main HD failure, in an instance where the backup HD also failed before I could get the replacement HD reinstalled and programs loaded and updated, I've become a firm believer in REDUNDANT regular backups.

One 250GB drive is partitioned with half used for all my "web knowledge" of downloads, notes and such so that I can comment on important items of interest here.

The other half of that drive is sufficient to make weekly collections of the Document folders on three desktops and one "currently used" laptop, along with bits from some obsolete laptops.

A pair of separate 250GB "portable external" HDs ("shirt-pocket" size) are used alternately to actually backup all of our data about monthly. These two are NEVER connected¹ to the system except during actual backup (or recovery). I consider one of these two my "primary long term backup" and the other is so that I can take everything I might need along (with the laptop) when on long-term trips away from home.

Before getting the two portables, I made lots of CD backups, but that became unwieldy at about 300 CDs with "current data" - not counting info like old emails and correspondence (150 CDs?) that business regulations require that we keep for a decade or so. and "data collections" like older music (indexes, scores, midis from books previously "published") on about 50 CDs.

¹ Some isolation is necessary. An AV full scan on my machine takes about 7 hours now, and would scan everything at least twice if backup drives were left connected.

Despite it all, yesterday a mysterious glitch (related to a new Office 2007 installation, I think) lost 50 hours worth of work that was "in progress" and hadn't made it to backup. The source material was, of course, in backup, so I can recreate it quite easily. It's only about 9,000 .jpg files that simply disappeared during a transfer to final folders.

Back to work.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: GUEST,goodlife
Date: 22 Apr 08 - 02:48 PM

files don't usually disapear maybe you sent them to another folder try search *.jpg then goto bed for an hour or so

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 22 Apr 08 - 07:13 PM

goodlife -

I appreciate the suggestion, but in this case I have carefully confirmed that the files "disappeared" - completely. None appeared in the trash bin. Neither a command line (DOS) search (Dir *.jpg /s) nor a command line Attrib search (Attrib *.jpg /s), nor a Windows Explorer search including hidden and system files - on all three drives connected at the time - showed any of the missing ones. [All files that were were lost were .jpg images.]

While all the files had been saved previously in final form and were just being moved, and most of them probably could have been recovered with a deleted file utility, it would take longer to go through the correction (and proofing) of first chars for all of them than to just re-create them in this case, even using a simple "rename.bat" method. (The filenames were specific to the individual image, and I'd still have to open an original to get the info required even to replace first chars accurately.)

Only about 1,400 files to go to re-create the lost ones. (~7,500 done already. Fortunately part of the processing is "repetitious" and can be "Batched" in Photoshop Elements. I did have a backup that's only two or three simple steps back from the final versions of each file.)

There's also the consolation that it's not really a "necessary" project. Just something to kill a little time pending really important posts here, that "require" my attention.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: Bernard
Date: 01 May 08 - 11:12 AM

For what it's worth... I use Netgear SC101 Network Attached Storage units for my backups.

They are a bit 'clunky' and messy to set up with a weird file system called Z-San, but have the advantage of allowing me to install two drives per unit and set them up 'mirrored'.

I've been using them for around four years, now, and have had one unit fail, replaced without question under warranty, and a couple of drives have failed... but on each occasion I didn't lose data thanks to the mirroring, which has to be good.

The daft thing about them is that each unit needs its own IP address, each HDD needs its own IP address, and each partition needs its own IP address! It does mean, though, that the mirrored drives don't have to be on the same unit, which gives additional security - as long as they're on the same network they don't even have to be in the same building!

On the downside they are rather slow when compared with a USB 2 or FireWire external drive. But if you're leaving a backup running overnight, who cares?!

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 01 May 08 - 11:28 AM

"There are still people out there that do not understand COMPUTORS ,put your feet back on the ground and listen to someone else for a change"

And there are still people out there who like to think they're pc-whizzkids, but still can't even spell computer, apparently. ROFL!!

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 02 May 08 - 09:28 AM

Originally, the term "computer" referred to a person who performed numerical calculations (a human computer), often with the aid of a mechanical calculating device.


:-)

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 10 Jan 12 - 12:10 PM

So . . . I delayed putting my data on the D: drive because I bought the computer and figured I could get the extra hard drive and install it once there was a good sale. I found it, but last year I didn't move the data onto that drive, and C: is in the red zone.

I've created partitions and moved data before and the program has asked me if I want to change all of the reference/drive paths to reflect these new locations. I'll have to redo some desktop short cuts, but since I'm using Win7 Ultimate, has anyone found new wrinkles or steps in the process? I don't want to copy my data, I want to move it completely.

I've responded to this question myself, but it was in an XP Pro context.

SRS

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: Bill D
Date: 10 Jan 12 - 12:40 PM

SRS... you want to totally copy one C drive to another drive or computer?

The geek-tech way is by using a DOS program called 'xxcopy'

I, being scared to death of DOS, have never tried it, but I see references to it in the newsgroup I frequent. It is used regularly by one member of that group... here is discussion he had about it


There is supposed to be decent app with a GUI also... I'll see f I can find it.

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: Bill D
Date: 10 Jan 12 - 12:48 PM

ahhh... here is one I remember reading about... clonezilla


and here is 'most' of another post on the topic which I copied directly from the newsgroup...by another dependable author.

"On Sun, 21 Aug 2011 09:22:58 -0700 (PDT), Teflon
wrote:

> I have a WD 160 GB external HDD attached to an XP Pro SP3 machine and
> that HDD is starting to act weird, so I would like to move everything
> off of that drive to a new 230GB drive. The old 160 GB drive is
> formatted in FAT32, so would like to format the new 320 GB in NTFS.
> The contents are application backup data and media files.
>
> My plan is to format the new drive to NTFS, then use the XP 'Backup'
> tool to move the contents of the old drive to the new drive. I would
> then disconnect the old drive and assign the new drive the old drive's
> letter (E:), assuming the apps that backup to the old E: drive would
> continue doing so on the new E: drive without my having to do anything
> to the app.
>
> See any problems so far?
>
> Any better approach recommendations?

No problems at all with the concept. Dave Lipman's advice to simply clone
the drive is probably the easiest and best way to do it, though.

If you still want to go the copy route, I've done similar things many times
before with both internal and external drives without a single hitch. I've
never used the XP backup tool, but other free software I use and like for
this and other related copy jobs include:

Unstoppable Copier:
http://www.roadkil.net/program.php/P29/Unstoppable%20Copier
(LOTS of other good software on the Roadkil site)

FreeFileSync:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/freefilesync/

Both are highly useful tools to have, and both offer portable or standalone
versions.
"

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: EBarnacle
Date: 10 Jan 12 - 12:48 PM

Actually, SRS, I'm just learning Win7 Ultimate myself but I had to be rescued recently when my key hard drive physically died. The data were transferred to an external and are being selectively reloaded to the W7 machine on an as needed basis. No partitions at all, just actual drives.

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: Gurney
Date: 10 Jan 12 - 01:29 PM

I just tried to defrag, and my C was too full too. I deleted photos of stuff that I'd sold online, but the main culprit was a Backup that I still had. 30GB, just sitting there.
250GB HD, XP. And I do have an external HD with music files on, but which I rarely switch on/plug in, it is my belt-and-braces reserve.

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 10 Jan 12 - 01:31 PM

I use XCOPY routinely for backups.

If you open a command prompt (still called a DOS Window by some) and type "XCOPY /?" (without the quotes) you'll get a full description of what the command does in the Windows version you're using.

There have been changes to lots of commands in successive versions of Windows, although I haven't noticed significant ones in XCOPY up through Vista and Win7.

To backup the folder C:\Stuff I go to the drive and folder where I want to add the files, and use:

XCOPY C:\Stuff\*.* /s /c /d

The *.* is the wild card form that says "all files."

The /s says include subfolders

The /c says "continue on error."

Note that without the /c, a file that requires a password or other authorization will cause the program to terminate, and the remaining files won't get copied. With the /c it just skips that file. Encrypted files (and/or password protected ones) can't be copied or moved by any simple means except by unencrypting first, and reapplying the encryption (and/or password) after copying. (I have ONE FILE that my kid "bought" that got included in a backup years ago, and I keep it because he refuses to back up his own stuff; so I need the /c.)

The /d says "copy only files with dates later than files already on the destination drive." (i.e. copy only new/changed files.)

You can copy the files and then delete them from the original (source) drive, of course.

There is a "Move" command, (Vista doesn't recognize the "MOV" abbreviation used in older versions), that will copy to the target drive and delete from the source drive automatically. You can get the details by typing MOVE /? in the DOS Window, but for large moves I can't really recommend it until you've at least tried it for a few smaller gobs of files first to be sure you have all the switches (the /x stuff) right.

I've noticed that using Windows Explorer to Copy and Paste from one place to another (or Drag and Drop) is sometimes unpredictable when you copy whole Folders, with some contents of the folder sometimes failing to copy. This is especially true when a folder includes subfolders that contain files. You can get it done that way, but you need to be very careful about verifying that everything came across before deleting the source files.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: Bill D
Date: 10 Jan 12 - 04:43 PM

Now... having said what I knew about,(not a whole lot) I want to ask a related question.

MY C drive is getting pretty full, but I saw no particular reason. Adding stuff up in my file manager didn't seem to account for that much. Finally, I used a program which does an analysis of a drive... "Space Sniffer"... and it found 92 gigabytes devoted to "restore points"!!

I do understand the value of having restore points, but I don't totally understand how they work and how much *I* can control them. I see the place I can define how much drive space they are 'supposed' to use, but that was set at 10%, and reducing it to maybe 3% made no difference. I see also that I can turn OFF that service, but that seems like a bad idea, and does not say it would clean up the backlog.

   The program listed many dozens of individual 'files' in the restore point area, but no way to identify them by date or relevance.

My intuition says I ought to be able to discard old ones...sort of by date... and keep only those relevant to perhaps a couple months.... but I am not sure if that IS how it works.

In the past, I have moved large collection of images and music to portable drives and gained a lot of space.... but now I am running out of things I really want to move....and 92 GIGS??

Any ideas, John or others?

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 10 Jan 12 - 04:54 PM

Right-click on the disk that's getting full up with restore points. Click Properties then Disk Cleanup. When it's finished its scan, click More Options. You can then remove all but the last restore point. I don't know whether there's a way of curbing the computer's misbehaviour in wasting so much disk space on restore points, but there flippin' well ought to be!

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: Tootler
Date: 10 Jan 12 - 05:16 PM

I use the Linux tool Rsync for my backups.It does incremental backups, that is, after the first run, it only copies the changed portions of files so it is pretty quick.

In it's basic form it's a command line tool which is how I use it but there are versions for Windows which include a GUI. Either go to Rsync.net and follow the "Windows Backup agent" link or try DeltaCopy. Both of these use rsync with a GUI.

You can also get a command line version but the procedure for setting it up looks pretty tedious and it's probably not worth it in Windows for most people.

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: Bill D
Date: 10 Jan 12 - 05:18 PM

!! I thought I had looked at ALL the menu items, Steve. I confess I had not seen that one. I shall now go to the 'other' computer where the problem is and see what happens.... and report back.

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: Bill D
Date: 10 Jan 12 - 06:02 PM

*grin*... it took 10 minutes to even determine how much space could be saved and offer me 'more options' of removing old restore points... and it is at maybe 20 minutes now doing the actual cleaning and compressing. I assume all will be better soon.
That sure filled an important gap in *MY* knowledge base. I may have seen that semi-obscure menu sometime in the past, but had lost track of it.

Thanks, Steve.


(I do incremental backups of *data* using a nice utility called "Cobian Backup")

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 10 Jan 12 - 06:19 PM

I assure you, Bill, that I hardly ever know what I'm doing. I just read about that one somewhere. After I posted I thought I'd just do it meself - and immediately regained 22 Gb!

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: Bill D
Date: 10 Jan 12 - 06:33 PM

22! Nice.... mine is still running as of 5 min ago.....that's about 45 min. of cleanup...

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 10 Jan 12 - 07:21 PM

I'll try again. Having had a computer drive fail or get clobbered in the past and lost data in the process, in my last computer I put the programs on the C: drive but parked the data (Documents, pictures, etc.) - now called Libraries - on the D: drive. When I first did that I may have used Windows Explorer, but the point is, I want my programs and shortcuts on the desktop to be able to still find my data. All of the addresses have to be changed so the programs on C: can find the Data: in D. I'm not copying, I'm moving, emptying out space in C:

SRS

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: Bill D
Date: 10 Jan 12 - 08:19 PM

'some' programs can be moved easily, as they are not installed, but only write to their .ini file. (but you no doubt know that)

Others usually have to be re-installed with a new designated address.

There 'might' be a help in an older program once distributed by PC Magazine called COA "change of address" which helps put them somewhere else and clarify that to the PCs registry.

It is now only on an Italian site where one aficionado saves "rare ware" and one Sourceforge site.

http://digilander.libero.it/rareware/coa2.zip

http://xpt.sourceforge.net/old_home/tools/win/coa32.zip

I have no idea if it is still relevant, but I suspect one might have to totally re-install some things.

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 10 Jan 12 - 10:11 PM

I poked around and found what I needed. There is a nice, relatively understandable forum called sevenforums.com with a page called Windows 7 - User Folders - Change Default Location. This is what I was looking for, to leave my profile information on C: but to move all of my data to D:. This is DIFFERENT than another option they describe, of moving your entire user profile to the other drive, in which case, you've set yourself up to have to reinstall some stuff. TAKE OPTION 2 - IT'S EASIER!!

Their tip:

Moving a user folder and it's contents to be stored at another location can be handy if you wanted or needed to save hard drive space on the C: drive.

I've set up the new external drive for backup and I'll do a backup of the C: drive before I start all of this. I can't say I've always been good about doing the backup before computer brain surgery, but I will this time because I've been meaning to get this thing out of the box for months. And if you're interested, here are some backup instructions.

SRS

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 10 Jan 12 - 11:14 PM

Stilly -

There are utilities built into the neweer Windows versions that let you "migrate" files from an old system into the new, that take care of updating all the links; but I haven't heard of a good one that takes care of the shortcuts/links just for a move within the same system.

For desktop links, if you move (or copy) the entire file structure (the whole tree), for example from C:\ to D:\, the only difference will be that the desktop shortcuts will say C:\<path>\filename and you need them to say D:\<path>\filename. Unless you've got an enormous number of shortcuts on the desktop, it shouldn't take long to manually edit the shortcuts. I've only got about 45 icons on my desktop, but some people might have more.

My suggestion would be that you leave programs that were installed at default locations on C:\. Windows has some (limited) ability to look for associated exe and dll files for some programs, and leaving them in default locations may let things run a little smoother for programs with quite a few "associated files." You would move only the documents, image files, etc created by your progams to the other drive. If you do it this way, you won't need to change the shortcut targets for programs, but probably will still want to change the "Start In" setting (in Properties for each shortcut) that's the default for where the program saves its outputs and where it looks when you need to reopen something.

Right click the icon, and click Properties. The Properties window usually will have a "Shortcut" tab. In the "Shortcut" box, change C:\ to D:\ if you moved the program. In the "Start In" box change C:\ to D:\ if you moved the documents etc for the program to a new drive where you'll be keeping what that the program creates. By NOT USING an automatic "mover program" you have better control of what you choose to move, at the cost of doing a fairly small amount of "cleanup."

The most likely real "clinker" with moving things around is with .htm files. A very large percentage of html files have an "associated folder" with the same filename as the html "document." The folder contains all the "linked in junk" that the "document" needs to display properly. When you download/save html (especially from the web) the save operation automatically changes all the links inside the "document" to point to the folder at the location where both are first saved. If you move either, or even if you move both together, those links will still point to the old location and the html document will be broken. Making even a minor change to the html filename also can often "break things." You can sometimes go through an html and edit the links manually, but that's not often very successful. The better procedure is to open the html "document" in your browser, from the original location, and save from the open document to the new location, but of course you have to do that one file at a time.

The even "very much better" method is to get in the habit of using "Save As" when saving from the web, and save the pages as "Web Archive, single file (.mht)" (the IE choice, the description may be different with other browsers). Instead of the html format that uses links to objects in a subfolder of the folder containing the html document, an mht file has all the linked objects along with the page itself in a single file, and all the links are "local links within the file" so you can move, rename, and about anything else you might want to do without worrying about the file falling apart.

Again, the only reliable way of changing the format for an html file (as for just moving one) is to open the page in your browser and "Save As" using the new format - in a new location if you want it also moved.

Incidentally, I've used the "system image" procedure according to Microsoft's instructions, for both WinXP and Vista. The Vista instructions are essentially identical to the Win7 instructions you linked. I've only had occasion to do an "image restore" recently in one case. The system reported "no image found" on the drive where I'd stored it - as the only thing on the drive.

Microsoft "backups" have had the reputation, since at least Win98, of being "write only." Anyone at Microsoft who needs something recovered just calls their in-house Support people who put back what they want from copies, not images. (All in-house computers there are backed up to the servers, probably still nightly.) Nobody at Microsoft has ever attempted to do a System Restore or Image Restore, and the remote possibility of "restoring" something is only mentioned in passing in any Microsoft help or support descriptions of what it "might be possible to do."

Be aware. A "System Recovery Disk," something slightly different than a "System Image" may be a more useful thing to have, with slightly better likelihood of actually being usable. There'd be no real harm in having one of each.(?)

John

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 11 Jan 12 - 08:08 AM

Bill D - about System Restore (vaguely?)

Up through WinXP, Windows included the ability to save "settings" as System Restore Points. Program files and such were not included. The only thing saved was a copy of the Registry and a few other "key files." If System Restore was turned on, a new restore point was saved each time you shutdown if changes to settings had been made during that session. A maximum number of Restore Points was saved, and recollection was that it was something like 6 or so. After the max was reached, each new Restore Point replaced the oldest previous one.

The assumption here was that corruption of the "settings" was a most likely cause of failure when you tried to restart, and that the system configuration when you shut down was "likely" to be a good one.

A problem with this was that malware that managed to write to the Registry could insert a command to reinstall itself at the next reboot (if it had been removed), so it was necessary to be able to remove potentially infected Restore Points. Restoring to the Registy typically writes any lines missing, but does not remove any lines already present so it has limited ability to actualy recover a true prior configuration.

Turning off System Restore deleted all prior Restore Points.

With Vista, and in all since, Microsoft announced computerdom's scariest statement: "Something new was added."

Unlike earlier FAT formats, the NTFS format permits "movable boot sectors" and as a result "movable partitions" that can be placed anywhere on the drive, theoretically without disturbing what's in existing partitions. This made it "convenient" to change the System Restore name to "System Protection." (It sounded more impressive.)

The "System Protection" functions somewhat like the older System Restore, but makes a "phantom copy" of both the setup files (Registry et. al.) and of critical OS files in a hidden partition on the system drive. It may be possible to specify creation of the phantom partition on another drive, but I haven't looked that far.

I haven't seen any information about how you can "look at" the hidden partition, but it's probably similar to the (notorious WOM?) Microsoft backups, and is both encrypted and "maximally compressed." so that even if you could find it the only way to tell what it contains would be by restoring it (although the recovery utility may give some information). Like a backup, it's pretty much all or nothing.

Microsoft says that turning off System Protection should delete all prior restore points, but since you can specify, or modify, the size permitted for the "ghost partition" it must be assumed that the partition for them remains, with it's same allocated size. Removing the files won't change how much space is available in the visible partition that you see as the "Drive Size." (I think, from what I've found.)

Note that since the "flying partition feature" is essential to make the "phantom copy partition" possible, this ONLY WORKS if you have NTFS format on the drive.

Microsoft has not included a capability in any of the released versions, so far as I've heard, to allow users to move and resize partitions with data in place; but quite obviously the system tools are able to do it for its own secret and mysterious purposes.

You already found the place where you can change the maximum size allowed for the "ghost partition," but it's unlikely that the resize would occur if it deleted anything in the partition. It probably would be necessary to turn off System Protection, to delete all existing copies in the partition, then do the reduction, and then turn System Protection back on, in order for the reduced size to be effective - but I'm just guessing about this.

Remembered history is that it's always a very good idea to thoroughly defrag any drive on which you intend to create, remove, or otherwise modify partitions. (It was sometimes possible to create new partitions in free space without losing existing files, even with the oldest formats.) Recent Windows versions give no meaningful report on the fragmentation currently on the drive, and the defrag program has been intentionally made compatible with "background processing" so that you can't even really tell if it's running or waiting. It does, with default settings, run automatically (usually weekly?) so fragmentation shouldn't be too bad, but there are lots of clues that it stops at some (unknown by mortals) degree of remaining frags. I get queasy feelings about things like this, but there's not a lot you can do about it.

Running aftermarket (third party) defraggers IS NOT RECOMMENDED on NTFS formatted drives, but I've seen little to indicate whether many people are doing it or what success they actually have had. NTFS attempts to add a lot more information in top level folders, most of which is gathered and written in as a background process "later" when files are added, removed, or modified; and moving many files (as happens with a defrag) can impose a rather heavy burden on the OS to reconstruct all the information that could change, before the drive gets over the resulting amnesia and paranoia.

This is, of course, just a superficial summary, and includes quite a bit of speculation. Take it with the usual ...

John

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 11 Jan 12 - 02:25 PM

As long as I leave the programs and the user profile (Windows: Users: Username) on the C: drive all of the programs will look to that to find the documents, images, etc. And that user profile will know that the data is now on the D: drive. I don't want to make it any more complicated than that.

I set up my backup program last night but found this morning that the energy saver program put the computer to sleep after two hours. I'll reset that to "never" until I finish the backup tonight.

SRS

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: Bill D
Date: 11 Jan 12 - 06:02 PM

I read and mulled it all over and tried...twice... to use the option to 'delete all restore points except the last one'. For some reason, it didn't do that. (Perhaps I didn't properly 'ok' the command.. *shrug*.) It did do a basic 'cleanup' which got me about 4 gigs of space recovered.

So... I did another scan...verified that huge amounts of space were still devoted to restore points. Then I simply did the "turn off system restore" and let it hum.... then turned it back on. Voila! 92 MORE gigs recovered.

I am not sure why the setting of limiting system restore to 10% did not limit it....but it's a computer!

Anyway, I can now do sensible backups.

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 11 Jan 12 - 06:13 PM

Once I have a good backup, I'll take a look and give that a try. You're a daring fellow, Bill, up on that tightrope with your computer and no net. :)

SRS

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 11 Jan 12 - 06:54 PM

Bill D

The system restore points, if you're using Vista or later and if your drive is formatted NTSF, are in a separate hidden partition. The partition is removed from available space, regardless of how much is in it; but it appears that OS can automatically inrease/reduce the partition size as needed, unless it reaches the maximum you have set.

If you told it to impose a limit lower than required by the files already in the partition, it's doubtful that the limit would be reset until sufficient files were removed to allow the remaining ones to fit in the new partition size. Turning off System Restore (or System Protection as it's called in latest versions) should have deleted all the files, so the resizing of the partition to the new limit could be done. A limit of 10% only means that the partition will use 10% or less of the drive.

Since the reduction in space used appears to be close to the space used by restore points previously (note that I didn't look closely at your numbers) it's possible that the new limit you set won't allow the ghost partition enough space to make a useful image, but the reduction would be from deleting files, and the change in allowed space would have no effect (for now). You might want to take a look to see if you get a new Restore Point after the system has had time to do the reconstruction after you turned the Restore function back on. Creation of a new restore point will run in background, and may take a while.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: Bill D
Date: 11 Jan 12 - 07:52 PM

I will monitor it, John...and I have learned some important new concepts in this thread (not just 'rules', but ideas about how things are actually organized & done.)

Note,, this "daring fellow" has milked that PC, with the same HD, for about 7 years now--with almost no serious problem- and no viruses or malware....which is why I'm trying to sort it all out before it decides I have pushed my luck too far. My safety net has been backups and anti-virus and anti-malware...

I intend to install a 2nd 'slave drive' and copy the entire drive.. (not just a data backup) because I have a lot of toys and personal setup at stake. I LIKE XP...even though I will likely get a Win7 machine some day. I would NOT like to have to reinstall all my collection of programs.

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 11 Jan 12 - 11:18 PM

I looked my my system restore settings - only about 1% is in use on my C: drive. The D: drive was off, since nothing is in it now, but I set it to restore that also.

SRS

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 12 Jan 12 - 03:14 AM

Stilly -

Unless you put programs on the D:\ drive, System Restore may not do much of anything there.

From (Vista) Windows Help, System Restore:

"System Restore can make changes to Windows system files, registry settings, and programs installed on your computer. It also can make changes to scripts, batch files, and other types of executable files on your computer. Personal files, such as documents, e‑mail, photos, and music files, are not changed.

"For example, if you download a personal file, such as a photo from a digital camera, on a Friday and then restore your computer to the state it was in two days earlier on Wednesday, the photo will still be on your computer.

"However, if you install a photo viewing program on a Friday and then restore your computer to the state it was in two days earlier on Wednesday, System Restore will uninstall the program, and you won't be able to use that program to view photos."

This does suggest that "install" is used in what is an unusual sense for Microsoft. The inclusion of "scripts, batch files, and other types of executable files" implies a more inclusive meaning than was found in descriptions of the older versions of System Restore. One still wonders if links embedded in documents, or .docm files that include macros, and .docx files with "active content" will be included(?). The "it can make changes ..." is also disturbing, since they don't say what "it WILL make changes to ..."

The concern, so far as I can see, is what might be deleted by restoring than with what might be missed in the backup. Your documents, photos, music files, etc., still require another separate backup method, so you'd likely include the questionable ones there anyway.

(Those still using WinXP or earlier should note that the System Restore there doesn't do nearly as much as is described above.)

John

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 12 Jan 12 - 03:19 AM

Bill D -

Your ancient PC appears to be about the same age as mine, but mine had the additonal benefit that I never needed support from the builder until about a year ago. When I tried to contact them I learned that they'd filed bankruptcy and folded the company about 6 months after I bought it (5+ years before I thought I needed them).

Maybe that's part of the reason it took so long for the old beast to start getting cranky - no tech support to mess it up.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 12 Jan 12 - 10:44 AM

I'll look into this more, but if the data is on a separate drive, a virus is less likely to hit there, and most programs can be reinstalled if necessary.

SRS

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: Bill D
Date: 12 Jan 12 - 11:25 AM

"...no tech support to mess it up..."

*grin*... now that just might be significant. Reminds me of the old comment..."If things don't get better soon, I may have to ask you to stop helping."

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 13 Jan 12 - 05:35 PM

I refined my information a bit more before beginning the move. On the same sevenforums.com site I found this question:

Having another bite at this after failing miserably first time around. I think I may have been confused about the distinction between special folders and libraries in Windows 7. In fact, I may still be. I'm finding this very difficult to get my head around!

What I would like to do is change the storage location of the files I save in the documents, pictures, music and video libraries. I think this may be a different thing to moving the actual location of the library folder itself....? Which I do not want to do. But I may still be hopelessly confused.

To reiterate I want to store my own files on a separate partition to the operating system by saving them in the libraries folders but changing the actual storage location of those library folders to D:/Files (or some such) rather then the default of C:/users/[username]. In XP I just used to right click My Documents and change location to D and viola, that's where XP stored all of my files when I saved them to My Documents. Simple.

I am still having trouble with this on Windows 7 and somehow managed to move a load of system folders (or the shortcuts to those folders - not sure which!) to my desktop. I have restored the defaults by using system restore.

Whilst am dual booting this separating operating system and my own files been a boon in that I can access all my files whether I am running XP (main system) or Windows 7. I think this may not have been possible if I had all my files stored on the C drive with the XP system as these folders seem to be locked when dual booting to Windows 7.

I hope this makes some sort of sense to someone !

Thanks in advance.

He is doing what I was doing when I first chose to place my data on a separate drive. On the computer that was stolen in 2005 I had put Win2000Pro in beside the flimsy Windows ME (a weak form of 98). I rarely used the ME side, but it was there to reach some of the programs that came with the computer and could operate some of the computer features. I haven't had to do that since, but it is good to know how.

Anyway, this is the brief answer. If you want the reassurance of the screen capture illustrations, look at that first link I supplied. Otherwise, here's a simple description:

It is actually quite simple.

I asume you are refering to special folders such as Documents, Pictures, Video, etc...

rightclick the special folder, chose properties, select the location tab, there you'll see the button to change the location.

But now the trick to avoid you getting double folder entries.

When you select a location let say d: and you click apply, you will be asked if you want to move the files that are present in the default forlder.

always chose yes, even if you think there's nothing in them.

That's it basically.

And it really is that simple.

Here is where someone described his experience of it a little more:

It makes perfect sense. I use an entirely separate drive for all of the special folders in both Vista and now Windows 7 - in fact, I used the same folders over and over again - so when I upgrade my OS using a clean install, all my downloads, pictures, music, documents, contacts, etc are all right back in the system with a minimal amount of editing.

To be honest, Libraries are a fancy way of symbolically linking to folders that already exist on your HD - it is just making it a lot easier to navigate to (or harder, depending upon your POV). I wasn't thrilled at first with libraries, but after realizing their potential, I made quick use of them - I have changed icons on existing libraries, as well as made several of my own - all with relevant icons as well. Now I have library access to several of my non-standard special folders.

But for you, you want to move the location of your "My Documents" folder and then have the library realize that you have moved it and refer to the new location for the Documents library. This is easy enough to accomplish.

This is the page where these quotes came from: http://www.sevenforums.com/performance-maintenance/18147-moving-storage-location-libraries.html

SRS

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: Gene
Date: 14 Jan 12 - 12:45 AM

GLARY offers 2 FREE programs that are very useful..

ARO Advanced Registry Organizer

and

Glary Utilities - which has about 6 functions..

and is TOTALLY FREE and updated often..

G

Subject: RE: Tech: Computer, Disc C Nearly Full
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 14 Jan 12 - 01:02 AM

I use the free version of WinPatrol. Bill D told me about that one years ago, and it really does a great job because all it does is guard the registry. Never heard of Clary, but that doesn't mean anything. WinPatrol is also great for clearing out the junk that piles into the start menu, slowing down your computer at startup.

SRS