Missing Hard Drive Space

Hello. I am using a Gateway Laptop running XP with 18.6 GB harddrive. Recentely I noticed I only had 1.43 GB left and thought that was strange being that that was around what I had before I deleted a large amount of files in order to make space. Even when I go to Local Disk(C, select all, and check the properties, it comes to 13.1(which sounds right). Adding the 1.43 of free space the computer claims it has, where is the remaining 4.07 GB? I know I have should have more than 1.43 Gigs left, which is why this is troubling me...

 

Have you checked the recycle bin?

 

As Pete says empty the Temp Internet files, and look for some unallocated space which these companies often set as an unused second partition that all that needs doing is setting a drive letter for and formatting to create a new partition. While your there the default Temporary Internet files cache will be hellishly high for reasons I can't fathom. I usually reign this in to 20MB, which is more than enough for me as I empty these files every couple of days anyway.
Also reign in the system restore setting as well. The default is I think 10% of the HD. I your case that's unnecessary high. I suggest setting it to no more than 2-5% for you. Right click my computer|properties and click on system restore etc. If you don't use hibernation then disable this to free up the same amount as your system memory.
If you've had a few BSOD'S, (Blue Screen Of Death) then do a search from start|search|all files and folders and enter *.dmp and delete all of these system dump files to free up some space.