[InfoHungry]

Hi,

I have a Dell Inspiron 530 with 2.0 G of RAM and a 32-bit operating system. I use Windows Vista Home Premium with Service Pack 2. My Drive C has 39.9 G, but right now, only 1.52 G is free. In contrast, my Drive D uses only 12 G of its 248 G. I do not know why Dell partitioned my PC's Drive C, which has the OS, to have such little space in comparison with Drive D.

I use Norton 360 almost daily to free up space on my Drive C. It used to get me back to 10% or more of free space. Now, I am lucky to get 5%.

I currently use mainly Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, IE version 9, Norton 360, Skype, Adobe Reader and Acrobat 9, my Epson PX-435A printer, Buffalo AirStation Nfiniti router, and a modem.

Over the past few years, I have moved various programs from C to D to help in my battle for drive space. They include Office and Adobe. But lots of stuff keeps accumulating on C.

I am sure there is lots of stuff that I could delete from C without impacting how I use my PC. But what can I safely trash?

Seeking info,

InfoHungry

 

[JMPC]

Re: Dangerously little free space on Drive C

Start by finding out where the space is going on the C: drive.
Download and run tree size free as an administrator:
JAM Software - Windows Freeware

That will show you how and where the space is being used on the C: drive.

 

[Panther063]

Re: Dangerously little free space on Drive C

If your C drive is partitioned into program and recovery drives (D), you can alter the partition size with freeware such as MiniTool Partition Wizard Home Edition 7.0 or Easus Partition Master etc.

 

[InfoHungry]

Re: Dangerously little free space on Drive C

Hi,

Thanks.

Did that. Not surprisingly, Windows comes in 1st at 28.4 G. System volume info is at 5 G. And Users come in at 4.

InfoHungry

 

[InfoHungry]

Re: Dangerously little free space on Drive C

Hi,

I have a recovery drive of 9.99 G (with 4.16 G free). But it is listed as Drive E. Is that a problem?

InfoHungry

 

[Panther063]

Re: Dangerously little free space on Drive C

Is there one physical hard drive partitioned into C,D and E, or more hard drives?

 

[InfoHungry]

Re: Dangerously little free space on Drive C

Just one. But I have an external hardrive that shows up as "I" when I activate it.

 

[Panther063]

Re: Dangerously little free space on Drive C

Then I'd suggest using partition software to remove a partition or extend the C drive partition.
Best Free Partition Manager Freeware and free partition magic for Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows Vista and Windows XP 32 bit & 64 bit. MiniTool Free Partition Manager Software Home Edition.

 

[InfoHungry]

Re: Dangerously little free space on Drive C

Great. I plan to give it a try. But first I would like to see if JMPC has any comment on my earlier reply.

 

[JMPC]

Re: Dangerously little free space on Drive C

Give disk cleanup a try first:
Delete files using Disk Cleanup - Windows Help

For reference, my Windows folder is 24.6GB which is typical.

If you have the page file residing on C: that could be moved to D:

CCleaner from Piriform is another option to help cleanup some temp files:
CCleaner - Download

I would use caution when resizing partitions and I would leave the recovery partition where it is.

 

[InfoHungry]

Re: Dangerously little free space on Drive C

I had been using Disk Cleanup for years. But I found Norton to be much better. Still, I tried it again after getting your post. It gave me about 0.02 G. I then downloaded CCleaner. It about doubled my C from 1.5 to 2.9. But Norton commonly does that much, too. So I will have to monitor CCleaner's capabilities. Anyway, I am heading in the right direction. So, thanks!

 

[spunk.funk]

Re: Dangerously little free space on Drive C

Go to Start/Search and type diskmgmt.msc right click the diskmgmt results and Run As Administrator. Could you please attach a screenshot of the Disk Management window with all your Disks and Drives showing.

 

[InfoHungry]

Re: Dangerously little free space on Drive C

CCleaner is working well. My Drive C is blue (rather than red) for a change. So we can consider this case solved. Thanks to all!

 

[spunk.funk]

Re: Dangerously little free space on Drive C

Go to Start/Search and type diskmgmt.msc right click the diskmgmt results and Run As Administrator. Could you please attach a screenshot of the Disk Management window with all your Disks and Drives showing.

If you need more help, please follow the instructions in the quote above. Other Wise, please mark this thread Solved in the thread tools at the top.

 

[jo-briggs]

Re: Dangerously little free space on Drive C

CCleaner is working well. My Drive C is blue (rather than red) for a change. So we can consider this case solved. Thanks to all!

Your problem isn't solved, it is temporarily alleviated. Until you adjust the partitions you will have a recurring problem which will eventually become intractable.

 

[InfoHungry]

You are probably very right. But I have been dealing with this for two years and feel that I now at least have some breathing room.