Windows Old file

lovesgshp

Can anyone advise me on this?
Some months ago, I had a failure, which appears to have been a hard drive connection fault.
Managed to get all going again, but now have a file on the C drive, which is "windows old". File is 49Gb.
Question is whether it is safe to delete totaly, or am I risking another computer crash. I have 115gb free of 232gb on the "c" drive where the file is located.

If the system details are required, then please let me know. Am using W7 home premium.
Thanks in advance for any help.

JJ_Egan

If PC is working then yest its an old windows installation saved when it was upgraded or OS reinstalled .

danthemoneysavingman

... so you are safe to delete it. If you lost any personal files (docs, pics, music) on the reinstall, you could well find them in there.

prowla

It's a folder called "windows.old", right?

I've just had one of those left after a Windows 8 to 8.1 update.

If you are anxious about whether you might need it, you could rename it and see if you find you have after a few weeks.

lovesgshp

prowla wrote: »

It's a folder called "windows.old", right?

I've just had one of those left after a Windows 8 to 8.1 update.

If you are anxious about whether you might need it, you could rename it and see if you find you have after a few weeks.

Yes, sorry Prowla, it is a folder and not a file. If I rename, why would it possibly disappear and if not, what do you suggest. As you can understand, I am not up to date with all these things!!

PHYTHIAN

If you had any photos/videos/word documents etc before the crash they will be in the windows.old folder. Move what you want to keep out for the .old folder .You can then delete the rest of the folder

lovesgshp

Thanks to you all for your helpfull advice. Will check through it all tomorrow to make sure I do not lose anything.

prowla

lovesgshp wrote: »

Yes, sorry Prowla, it is a folder and not a file. If I rename, why would it possibly disappear and if not, what do you suggest. As you can understand, I am not up to date with all these things!!

No, it wouldn't disappear of its own accord; I meant you could rename it so that anything that was trying to use it wouldn't find it, and then if nothing complained for a couple of weeks and/or you didn't need to pull anything back from it, you could then delete it.

J_B

Maybe, if you need the room and aren't sure, then put it on an external storage medium somewhere, just for peace of mind.

I still have a folder on my PC somewhere called 'Old 450MB Hard Drive', which was stuff saved from my first ever PC!!!

tronator

PHYTHIAN wrote: »

If you had any photos/videos/word documents etc before the crash they will be in the windows.old folder. Move what you want to keep out for the .old folder .You can then delete the rest of the folder

No, they won't be in that folder. All user files are stored in the user's profile under c:\users

lovesgshp

Have checked all the files in the folder and decided there was nothing that was not in the new windows folder that was worth keeping.
Tried to delete the whole folder, but it tells me that "system" will not let me delete as do not have permission. Another message also comes up. which I think is something called installer that I cannot get past either.
Any ideas and thanks for the help