hard drive nearky full - what can i do?

zebedy

Hi, I'm not very technical so hoping someone can help.
I use iTunes on my home laptop and have a few documents and a few photos and now my hard drive/c drive is very nearly full.

I have an external hard drive that I back things up to and store most of my photos on. There is nothing that I want to delete on my laptop but soon i won't be able to fit more on my iTunes.

Is there a way i can increase the capacity of my hard drive. I've heard something about buying extra RAM and i think that has something to do with increasing memory or maybe just speed?

can anyone help please?

heatherw_01

RAM will not increase your HDD size. The only way to increase the size of it, it to move things to an external HDD or buy a larger one I am afraid

superjaggybunnet

It is not extra RAM that you need it is a new, bigger, external hard disk!

HoofeHearted

Download, instal and run CCleaner from this link http://www.ccleaner.com/

It will scan your hard drive and remove lots of unnecessary files from the drive. This should then give you some breathing space to investigate what else you can get rid of.

chopperharris

sorry but the op is talking about c: read the post again.

hello op , sit yourself down with a nice cuppa , keep it far from the pc.

sit and look through the start menu and see exactly what you use and dont use , ie programs and games.Delete what you dont use all the time , or havent used in ages.But do it through windows add remove software.Run disk cleanup afterwards.

NExt get yourself a free prgram called cr ap cleaner , and run it.This will remove most of the junk thats on you pc that accumulates over time , things like cookies from surfing , and tmp files from memmory and programs which are not needed.

LAstly check out your recieved files , docs and if your into file sharing for things like mp3 then delete what you dont need or offload to external hd/ backup to dvdrw.

Once you have done this delete system restore points other than most recent then defrag the c:.You should now have an almost virginal pc again.

You will have to affload itunefiles to external hd or it will keep happening.
hope this helped.

slewis1972

if you running Xp, and machine is running all ok apart from being full, turn off system restore. Right click on "My Computer" and select "Properties". In new wndowm goto the "system restore" tab. Tick "turn off system restore" and perss apply. Now wait as it deletes all the restore points. Once its done, untick and press apply. Wait till done and then press ok.

System restore can take up gigs of space from restore points and doing this can save you loads of space.

Also, a neat trick, right click on recycle bin and select "properties". Lower the spae it uses from 10% to 5%. Press ok. Now on reboot you will have that extera space that was once reserved abck to use.

Plus I also endorce using ccleaner. I use it daily and does do a good jon cleaning up.

get a external hdd - 500gb ones are like under £50 now. As above post - move itunes files off your curernt hdd onto it.

Scott

Scott

SimonJ80

Another vote for ccleaner here! Plus get rid of any unused programs. Shift anything you don't need day-to-day access to onto the external hard drive (old photos etc).

Leopard

Buy yourself a nice, portable, external hard drive containing a 2.5" disk that has a substantially larger capacity than the one that is in your laptop now and which runs at at least 5,400 rpm. Ensure that it is of the same type - either SATA or PATA - as the drive in your laptop.

Clone your existing laptop's hard drive data on to it.

Then open up the portable and swap the hard drives over, putting the new one into your laptop and the old one into the enclosure. That way, your existing laptop drive won't go to waste.

If, on the other hand, the drive in your laptop has had a lot of use and its life (and reliability) are approaching their end, just buy a new, bare drive and bin the old one.

Optimum spec for the new drive would be either 320 GB running at 7,200 rpm or 500 GB running at 5,400 rpm - but they're quite expensive.

A good compromise, price-wise, would be a 200 GB drive running at 7,200 rpm or a 320 GB drive running at 5,400 rpm.

Good sources for a new drive are DABS and LambdaTek - both are dependable.

You can get a 4% discount from DABS if you buy through Quidco and it's also worth waiting until Friday evenings before buying anything from DABS because they often offer free shipping on items purchased over the weekend.

Buy a drive of good quality. For laptop drives my own preference of manufacturer is Hitachi.

A 200 GB, 7200 rpm Hitachi SATA laptop drive cost me £77, including shipping, from LambdaTek last week and it arrived the day after I purchased it online.

The 320 GB, 7200 rpm version (currently) costs £30 more.

The 320 GB, 5400 rpm version (currently) costs about £84 and the 500 GB one costs about £152 - including shipping.

superjaggybunnet

The hibernation mode file can take up around 1.5gb.

If you do not use this option then delete this and free up the space.

zebedy

Wow, thanks everyone for all this great advice. I'll get working on it all tonight and let you know how it goes.

brightonman123

and maybe take off (all?) the dodgy videos etc!