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Windows Vista Vista: trying to de-load this hard drive!

Discussion in 'Legacy Windows' started by Greg Golden, 2013/10/17.

  1. 2013/10/17
    Greg Golden

    Greg Golden Well-Known Member Thread Starter

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    OK, I was just given a 5-year-old HP/ Windows Vista PC with a 50GB hard drive and 6GB RAM. I've been updating the Windows patches and Service Packs, etc. Machine runs quite well. But the drive is about 99% full, which causes trouble when trying to load printer drivers (or any new pgms).

    I don't see a lot of "junk" pgms on this machine, and I uninstalled a few that looked useless and deleted all the music files. I also emptied the Recycle Bin several times. Problem is, I just can't see where so many files are stored. Where did they put 49 GB of junk??? There must be SOMETHING I can delete. Where should I concentrate my efforts? thanks/ Greg:(
     
  2. 2013/10/17
    MrBill

    MrBill SuperGeek WindowsBBS Team Member

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    Did you get any Disk's with it? If so, I would just wipe it and then start over. That way you know that you got everything and bet it wouldn't be that full. 50GB isn't very big to start with, but it shouldn't be that full.

    Does it have a "D" drive which might be the recovery partition?
     

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  4. 2013/10/17
    Greg Golden

    Greg Golden Well-Known Member Thread Starter

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    Bill-
    I did not get any disks (not even the OS disk). And yes, it does have a physical D drive. I have not explored that.
     
  5. 2013/10/17
    James Martin

    James Martin Geek Member

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    I've never run Vista before, so I am not sure how big the operating system files are, but, to me, 50 GB is not a lot of room to work with on C drive.

    Can you post a list of installed programs and their respective sizes?

    EDIT: Oops. Bill, you beat me to it.
     
  6. 2013/10/17
    Greg Golden

    Greg Golden Well-Known Member Thread Starter

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    My general idea would be to 1) buy a bigger drive, and 2) buy a copy of Windows 7 to load. But I don't want to invest in a new OS for this 5-year-old machine. Hmmm?
     
  7. 2013/10/17
    Evan Omo

    Evan Omo Computer Support Technician Staff

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    Hi Greg. I can't believe a computer that is running Windows Vista only has a 50 GB hard drive.

    If you want to free up more hard drive space follow these steps:

    1. Click Start< Control Panel< Uninstall a Program and uninstall any programs that you don't use.

    2. In Control Panel under Programs and Features click the link that says Turn Windows Features On or Off and uncheck all the checkboxes except for Games, Internet Explorer 8/9, Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5.1, Windows Media Features, Windows Search, XPS Services and XPS Viewer. Then Expand the Windows Media Features category and uncheck Windows Media Center unless you use it but leave Windows Media Player and Windows DVD Maker checked. Click Ok when you are done and then click on the Restart Later button when prompted. (If you use a Windows Feature that is listed then don't uncheck its checkbox)

    3. Download and run ATF Cleaner. Save the program to your desktop. After the download completes, right click on the ATF Cleaner program and select Run as Administrator. When it opens select all the checkboxes in the program then hit the empty selected button. Download it from here, ATF Cleaner.

    4. Run Disk Cleanup. Click Start< All Programs< Accessories< System Tools< Right click Disk Cleanup and select Run as Administrator. Once Disk Cleanup finishes calculating how much space it can free up make sure that all the checkboxes are selected except for hibernation file cleaner. Once all of those checkboxes are selected click the More Options tab and under System Restore and Shadow Copies click the Cleanup button. Click Clean up to delete all of the old System Restore points. Once that's done click the Ok button to perform the requested actions and click Yes when prompted to allow Disk Cleanup to remove unnecessary files on the computer.

    5. Please download AdwCleaner and save it to your desktop. Run the program by right clicking on it and selecting Run as administrator. When the program opens click on the Scan button. Then when the program has finished scanning, click on the Clean button. The program will reboot the computer. Post the AdwCleaner log in your next reply.

    6. Next, download the Junkware Removal Tool and save it to your desktop. Run the program by right clicking on it and selecting Run as administrator and post the JRT log in your next reply.

    Hopefully you can free up some more hard drive space using the steps I posted. Is the D drive a partition or is it another physical drive? You may be able to go into Disk Management and merge the partitions which will give you more space.
     
    Greg Golden likes this.
  8. 2013/10/17
    James Martin

    James Martin Geek Member

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  9. 2013/10/17
    Greg Golden

    Greg Golden Well-Known Member Thread Starter

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    Evan
    Thanks for all the steps. I will go through them at home tonight.

    Greg
     
  10. 2013/10/18
    Greg Golden

    Greg Golden Well-Known Member Thread Starter

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    Well, what a joke. I opened the cabinet to look at the hardware, and I see it is a 1TB drive. Who's the joker that only set up a 50GB partition and a 10GB partition and left the rest unallocated? Anyway, I'm now formatting the unallocated partition. Hoping to make a useful machine out of it without having to buy an OS disk. Wish me luck!
     
  11. 2013/10/18
    MrBill

    MrBill SuperGeek WindowsBBS Team Member

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    Might of been the way it was formatted.
     
  12. 2013/10/18
    Evan Omo

    Evan Omo Computer Support Technician Staff

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    Or the person could have been an idiot for leaving the rest of the drive unallocated like that.

    Greg, you probably could have just extended the current system partition to use the unallocated space instead of formatting the drive and creating a new partition from scratch. I've had to do that plenty of times.
     
  13. 2013/10/19
    masterroming

    masterroming Well-Known Member

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    Yeah, please don't format the drive... :eek:
     
  14. 2013/10/19
    Greg Golden

    Greg Golden Well-Known Member Thread Starter

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    I found a huge section unallocated and unformatted. I just formatted that section as NTFS and it became a useable partition. I wish I could just move all the Windows files to the large new partition but I don't want to cause system problems.

    Right now the system boots fast and cleanly. Just out of space on the main partition, is my only concern.
     
  15. 2013/10/19
    PeteC

    PeteC SuperGeek Staff

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  16. 2013/10/19
    Whiskeyman Lifetime Subscription

    Whiskeyman Inactive Alumni

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    Greg Golden likes this.
  17. 2013/10/22
    Reilly

    Reilly Inactive

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    I tried to follow Evan Omo's procedure for turning Windows Features off but Windows Media was not on the list!

    I also saw nowhere in Disk Management how I could merge my C and D partitions (I am in the same predicament as the OP).
     
  18. 2013/10/22
    masterroming

    masterroming Well-Known Member

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    Please do not hijack this thread :( especially as it has been marked as 'Resolved' Please create your own! ;) :D Thanks! All will be more than happy to assist.
     
    Last edited: 2013/10/22
  19. 2013/10/22
    Evan Omo

    Evan Omo Computer Support Technician Staff

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    Reilly, it would help us if you started your own thread so that you get more attention on getting your issue resolved, thanks.
     

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