How to Find Out What's Using Up My Hard Disk Space?

[jujubee]

Hello all.

I've noticed that my old computer has been running slower. It has a 13 GB hard drive, and when I right click Properties by the C drive icon its shows that I have 4 GB left.

I don't really understand how I've managed to eat up nearly 9 GB over the years. I have barely added anything to my computer. Furthermore, I have cleared out all my temporary internet files and index.dat files. The latest spyware and virus scans show that I have no viruses or spyware.

I have defragged my computer completely, and it has only marginally improved its speed

I would like to find out what programs are eating up my space on my computer. Is there any feature in Windows or any free program out there that can show me in numerical order which programs are using up the most hard-disk space on my computer?

At most, I feel that the programs on my computer should be eating up only 4-5 GB at max. I can't figure out how 9 GB has been used up.

Any help would be really appreciated.

[Zagor]

For what is worth, you can try Easy Cleaner Utility:

EasyCleaner is a small program which searches Windows' registry for entries that are pointing nowhere. EasyCleaner also lets you delete all kinds of unnecessary files like temps, backups etc. You can search for duplicate files and you can view some intresting info about your disk space usage!

Especially use the option for erasing unnecessary files (be sure to check all files for removal). If this doesn't help post again, we'll see what else to do.

http://personal.inet.fi/business/toniarts/ecleane.htm

Cheers

[mauserme]

I don't really understand how I've managed to eat up nearly 9 GB over the years.

That's really very little by today's standards.

I would like to find out what programs are eating up my space on my computer. Is there any feature in Windows or any free program out there that can show me in numerical order which programs are using up the most hard-disk space on my computer?

I'm not aware of a program that does exactly that but if you open the Windows Explorer, right click on each program folder and then click properties the window that pops up will show size, number of files, etc within that folder.

But a better approach would be to look in Add/Remove Programs in the control panel and make decisions based on what you need or don't need rather than the size of the program.

Also, if you've ever updated to a newer version of Windows on your older computer there will be back up files of the old system.  These are created so you have an option to roll back to the old version if you need to.  They can be removed using Disk Cleanup in the system tools folder.

[Eddy]

CCleaner and CleanUp! are very nice utils to remove unneeded files.

[Zagor]

CCleaner 1.26.218

http://www.filehippo.com/download_ccleaner/

BeClean 1.4

http://boozet.xepher.net/beclean/download.htm

[DavidR]

One of the biggest hogs of dick space is system restore assuming you have WinMe or WinXP, it just keeps growing and growing unless you restrict it or periodically clean it or if you have an alternative disable it.

I suggest you do a disk cleanup, right click on the disk you want to clean and select Properties, click Disk Cleanup, tick any options you want and click the Other Options Tab. There are three other Clean up options for, Windows Components, Installed Programs and System Restore, this is the one of interest, you can examine the options in the others if you wish, nothings happens automatically if you click the Clean up... button. On clicking the System Restore Clean up... it will ask if you want to delete all but the most recent restore point? Yes or No.

This usually recovers large amounts of disk space, I have seen it get as big a 1GB and once 1.5GB if you don't restrict its maximum size.

[Lisandro]

Does anybody know a good tool to remove the backups of Windows Updates?
I mean, after quite a long time, for sure I'll never restore that backups and there are a lot of them under Windows folder... 

[DavidR]

Yes, I use a Utility from Doug Knox's web site (dougknox.com) xp_remove_hotfix_backup I'm not sure what the latest version is but I use the 2.0.0.0 (I also have 2.1.0.6) as it has less restrictions.

[bob3160]

Thanks David.
This cleaned up a lot of useless junk from my system.
Latest version can be downloaded from HERE

[DavidR]

I have that one (2.1.0.6) as well Bob, I find the earlier one more flexible, unfortunately it may not be available.

[Lisandro]

Yes, I use a Utility from Doug Knox's web site (dougknox.com) xp_remove_hotfix_backup I'm not sure what the latest version is but I use the 2.0.0.0 (I also have 2.1.0.6) as it has less restrictions.

Thanks David. I've already downloaded and will give it a try.

This cleaned up a lot of useless junk from my system.

Thanks for the report Bob 

[CharleyO]

***

Well, that was quick and easy!   

Thanks David & Bob!   


***

[Gene J]

For those of you with .NET Framework on your machines (a developer's tool), FolderSizeBrowser will show you where every little byte is. Double click on a drive and it will show the size of each folder. Double click on a folder and it will show the size of each sub-folder. Double click on a sub-folder and it will show the size of each file inside. Neat and easy.

http://www.sliver.com/dotnet/foldersizebrowser/

 

[DavidR]

The only thing I would say about using this xp_remove_hotfix_backup tool is exercise care. Wait at least a month after a windows security hotfix to ensure the hotfix update is stable and you don't want to remove/uninstall it. Once you remove the hotfix backup you can uninstall it.

The reason I perfer the older 2.0.0.0 version is I can select individual hotfixes to delete, unlike the later version, which is an all or nothing afair, unless you use the licensed (paid for/registered) version.

[jujubee]

The OS that I am using is Windows 98.

I already have CCleaner, and I have used it. It really hasn't done much for me. When I went to delete my temporary internet files and index.dat files, it showed that those files only used up 0.31 MB. That's kind of hard for me to believe given that I haven't got rid of my index.dat files in such a long time (I mean I've deleted TIF through Internet Explorer, but all those Internet files are still stored in the index.dat. Everytime I scan with the anti-virus, I can see it scanning those weird 8 letter names it gives to the folders. I haven't deleted index.dat in years, and yet I was so surprised that CCleaner only showed that 0.31 MB was used up. I was expecting something in the 500-600 MB range)

I guess I should have been more specific. I am looking for a program or utility that can let me see anything (not just programs) that is hogging up space on my hard drive.