Dell Mini - no disc storage space.

skylight

DD1 has been given one of these by her Dad as he can't get it to respond properly after having it for a few years.

I know that it only has a small 7gb HDD for the thing and I am trying to clear off some rubbish as much as I can as it keeps telling me there is no disc space left.

Windows XP updates in the Add/Remove programs - there are lots of these and date back to 2009. If I deleted them, would they affect the running of the computer?

stilltheone

Get rid of Windows XP and install Ubuntu for Netbooks or similar instead.

stilltheone

The last version of Ubuntu Netbook Edition is here(torrent)

If you want the latest version of the OS, you can just install the normal version.

There may be others who will come up with alternative suggestions to do with Linux.

skylight

OK. So I need to save that to a usb drive, then wipe the HDD of the mini and stick the USB into that after it's done??

Or, if I go to that web page on the mini and download it, will it download and remove at the same time???

Or perhaps back away slowly from the machine and take it to a shop?!!

skylight

CCleaner Drive Wiper?

What does this do? If I used it for the entire contents, would that be everything or everything but the operating system and basics??

(You post first before I mentioned this)

stilltheone

Just follow the instructions here. Don't make it up as you go along. Just choose your options and then Show Me How. It's simple. You don't need anyone else. You just need a USB drive with nothing on it(as you should format it given the choice) and to know how to get the DELL to boot from the USB drive.

There's not much you can do wrong that can't be salvaged. So don't worry. You can ask as many questions as you like here as you go along.

stilltheone

skylight wrote: »

CCleaner Drive Wiper?

What does this do? If I used it for the entire contents, would that be everything or everything but the operating system and basics??

(You post first before I mentioned this)

Forget about all that. Installing Ubuntu and formatting the disc will do that all for you.

googler

skylight wrote: »

Windows XP updates in the Add/Remove programs - there are lots of these and date back to 2009. If I deleted them, would they affect the running of the computer?

How much space are they using?

What's taking up the most space? Pictures? Large Music Files?

Once you establish this, it gives you a strategy for removal.

stilltheone

googler wrote: »

How much space are they using?

What's taking up the most space? Pictures? Large Music Files?

Once you establish this, it gives you a strategy for removal.

Factory Restore or a flavour of Linux is recommendable, rather than messing for hours trying to clean the thing up to little avail.

closed

7GB is plenty for XP and a fair amount of data,.moving to linux will probably swap one problem for another.

post a hijackthis log, run ccleaner, uninstall any unwanted applications in control panel, reduce the size of the swap file, and have a look where the space is going with something like windirstat

Hammyman

A vanilla Windows XP install is around 1.5GB. Use XPLite to remove stuff you don't need thats not accessible through Add/Remove programs. Use CCleaner to delete redundant system restore points or turn system restore off altogether - as it is a common place malware hides and it eats HDD space, you'll not lose much by turning it off.