Help! Please. Please. Please. (Laptop troubles)

[ohnoshedittant]

My laptop is telling me it has no free space on local disk C. Only 1% free space which is 'critical' apparently. It's working OK, but very slow.

Problem is I've done everything I can to free up space and nothing is helping. I think I have some sort of virus or something?

-I've moved all files (my documents, photos, video, music etc) onto an external hardrive thing and deleted them from my laptop.

-I've deleted any unused programs.

-I've run CC cleaner, the disk clean up thing and deleted the system restore points (apart from the most recent one).

-I've run Malaware and AVG, but both have come up clean.

Does anyone know what I'm doing wrong or what I can do to fix this problem?
I'll be very, very grateful!

TIA

report might be a lie (to get malware copied onto ext drive / USB stick and infect you again later.

What version of Windows are you using ?

Can you use File Manager / Windows Explorer to see list of drives/folders and list of folders/files (may need to click 'folders' button...

if you highlight My Computer in left column, right should show size and free space

lets see if really low on space...

Thanks for your help!

If I check under my computer, properties etc. It tells me there is only 425MB free space and the pie chart is all blue (used space)! It just can't be full though! I've deleted so much stuff.....

If I do a disk defragmentation it tells me that the level of free space is critical.

Any ideas?

TIA

Have you emptied the recycle bin?

well done wohmum - I had it in my head earlier but with a tummy bug was distracted and had to 'dash' :(

Yes recycle bin emptied.

I've run the 'free up more disk space' thing that comes up when you're low on space and that empties recycle bin, temp internet files etc.

Hope you're feeling better soon networkguy!

If you are down to 400 MB on a big drive and have moved items off to another drive there is something odd happening.

One thing to remember when you drag folders from one drive to another is that Windows will copy items as default action, not move them (ie originals are usually left untouched).

Something else that can cause confusion is how many 'hidden' files there are and for most purposes, Windows hides them from view (try seeing the files on the C drive and you may see a warning they are hidden for safety...

Only mention the above in case you were unaware - always difficult to know how keen / technical / scared someone else is, from a distance...

Would be happy to 'talk you through' a few things to see where the space is being used. Would normally try to find some clever software to do pie chart or whatever but right now you need some extra free space, not extra software to drop the free space even more.

[ Thanks for well wishes - have only been getting max sleep spells of 1 to 2 hours since Wednesday night and forced myself to go out yesterday for cat food and milk, but feling very tired... Glad cup-a-soup was on offer on Tuesday, and might rev up to fish pie, cottage pie or macaroni for lunch today... ]

Reading everything again, if 1% = 450 MB, your HD is about 40 GB, which to be fair nowadays is quite small (maybe it's a slightly older laptop, and don't think I'm being critical, one of my laptops is running short of space with around 18 GB but split into drives C and D, and too much 'junk' gets saved in folders under the "Documents and Settings" umbrella... which keeps all sorts of settings and sometimes downloads, and I note that Google Chrome doesn't install under "Program Files" but in Docs + Settings... yuk)

What do you use the laptop for? I'm wondering in particular about things such as iTunes, BBC iPlayer Download or anything else that may be storing large amounts of data in particular video files.

WinDirStat may be useful to find large files. It's under 700k download size. Takes a little time to run but once it has analysed what you have, it will show in table form and graphical form the sizes of folders and files. May be tricky to identify which things you can remove but it may help as a starting point for finding applications you no longer use which are taking up a lot of space, or files that are taking up a lot of space - I've just found a .mp4 file (in BBC iPlayer folder) taking up a lot of space as it has not yet been deleted, although I've already watched it.

Thanks for your help guys!

You're right networkguy it is an older laptop, but in good working order apart from this memory issue! Maybe a liitle more detail about what is happening would help....free space was low, but I had loads of pics/music/vids etc so i bought an external hard drive and moved everything across and deleted them all from my laptop. The amount of free space went up accordingly. Since then anything new has been moved straight to the external hardrive and deleted from the laptop, but the amount of used space goes up. Last week I had 4% free space, yesterday 1% and today it's telling me I have 0% free space! I'm removing stuff and def not downloading anything new....I'm soooo confused!!

I googled the problem when it first started happening (around the 4% free space mark) and got some advice that way, all of which I followed, but it has made no difference!

nannynick the laptop is used for the internet (email, mumsnet, google etc), I download music but it's stored on my external hard drive, pics (again stored elsewhere). I don't use iplayer, but do watch 4OD or the ITV player from time to time...could these be downloading things without me knowing? I had iTunes, but it was removed when the memory started getting low.

Streaming video stores on temporary basis, so does need some space but isn't like downloading an entire 30min/60min video.

Windows will adjust the memory swap file size by default. So that may be why the space available goes up and down a bit, but that would happen on an very regular basis.

Are software updates turned on? Any applications with auto update on, will download things in background.

Marking place as have exactly same problem, although laptop is running smoothly I too only have 2% space and everything on external hard drive.
Mine is aaaaancient, (in computer terms)it's a Vaio and I've had it since 2004!

Guys....for those which have copied their stuff onto an external hard drive to save space.

Please please PLEASE don't make this your only copy your beloved music/documents & photos. One day, your disk will die and you will lose the files. Especially given that external drives have a tendancy to be thrown around, dropped and/or lost.

Consider either a second external disk, upgrading laptop to a larger disk or using an online cloud storage company.

But please don't only have one copy of anything!

My photos and videos are duplicated, but I must get round to doing my music,and probably more importantly my teaching materials.

What lifespan would you say an external had? Mine is nearly 4 yrs old.

Ok I've downloaded and run the 'Windirsat' linked to by nannynick. It's done its thing, but now I need help to understand the results!

The biggest file is WINDOWS 86.3%
Within WINDOWS the biggest file is Installer 87.4%
Within Installer the biggest file is (the picture is blue instead of beige is that means anything?) 99.3%
Within Installer there are hundreds of smaller files all named combination of numbers and letters.msp e.g. 174c954.msp. In the key it says .msp means 'Windows Installer Patch'.

I don't know what any of this means....anyone?

The second biggest file is Documents and Settings 7.7%. Within this there a number of files called iTunes or Mozilla or other things that I've deleted...but they seem to have left something behind? They're only small files though.

niceguy2 I should abs get round to doing that, becuase I know it will happen and I won't have saved the elsewhere and then I'll kick myself!! Particularly because my hard drive has been dropped sooo many times....

That's a Windows System folder and is the sort of thing that you usually don't want to go messing with.

There are tools from Microsoft that can help you clean out that folder, but they are something you run from the command line and they can break Windows so I'm a bit worried about recommending them.

One thing that can help, if you use this feature, is to remove all but the most recent System Restore Point.

Instructions for this are here:
windows.microsoft.com/en-GB/windows7/Delete-a-restore-point

This does carry a risk in that you'll loose those older restore points but if you know that other than space you're machine is OK then deleting all but the most recent should be fine.

Also is your anti-malware and anti-virus up to date? I'm a little bit worried that something might be chewing up the disk space and trying to pretend that it's a part of Windows...

Thanks Badgerspaws

I've deleted all but the most recent system restore point, but it doesn't make much difference.

anti-malware and anti-virus are both up to date and both come up clean when I do a scan!

Thinking some more that's kind of what I'd expect, Windows is meant to make sure that the system restore points don't chew up all the disk space. But it's worth checking.

I recommend this cautiously but I think it's worth a go, follow the instructions here:
techierambles.blogspot.com/2011/02/remove-orphaned-windows-installer-files.html

However be very very sure that you type in exactly what it says, the bit when it asks you to enter "msizap.exe G!" (which you do without the quotes around it but with that trailing exclamation mark) has got to be precise.

Does that help?

Thanks badgerspaws. I've gotta run, but will do that this evening and post how I get on.

I really do appreciate everyones help. You may be saving me the cost of a new laptop!

Entering really dangerous territory - so really really important to backup those vital documents, photos etc before playing with Windows folder!

What version of Windows do you have?

ONLY FOR USE WITH WINDOWS XP!

Windows XP Update Remover from Tech-Pro may be useful to remove very old Backups. Sort by Date Installed. Select the OLDEST so something say from 2006 or whatever and click Remove Backup Folder. Then cross your fingers and hope you have a machine that still boots!

Act very cautiously, remove only one at a time. Reboot after it completes removing each backup

Is this your only computer? If so then please do realise that playing with things in the Windows folder can be very dangerous and result in a machine that does not boot into Windows.

At some point you will have to call it a day, you've done a lot already to try to clear the system up.

Did Windirsat find any smaller folders/files that could be removed, such as video files or audio files?

Oh god! Now I'm really nervous. The total size of the file containing all the 'windows installer patch' files is 27.2 GB is that unusually large? Why would it be so much? Is it because it's a really old computer or is my computer just saving too much/malfunctioning?

When you run CCleaner, what does it say along the top?

Mine says:
MS Windows Vista Home Basic 32-bit SP2

Alas I do not have an XP machine anymore... I'm guessing your laptop is running XP but don't know that for sure, thus asking the question about what CCleaner says what your Windows version is.

With luck, if someone then has the same version of Windows running on a machine, they may be able to shed some light on the size of the FOLDER you are talking about - though that folder name needs to be known. What is the FOLDER name containing these 'windows installer patch' files?

Why would it be so much?
Could be many things. The folder could contain a lot of other stuff that is unrelated to the patch files. The patch files themselves could be in use, thus why you don't want to delete them manually, you need something to help you work out what they are.

All the files in that folder may well be things that the system uses.

"Windows XP Update Remover from Tech-Pro may be useful to remove very old Backups."

I'd try that msizap link that I recommended before doing this and then only do this if there's still not enough space. The options given for running msizap should only remove installation files that Windows knows nothing about, so their removal is a pretty safe option.

msizap is also a genuine Microsoft tool, and so I'd trust it reasonably well to do this job.

This other removal tool then removes other stuff, and that is by it's nature riskier. But it might be necessary if the other tool doesn't give enough space back.

"Entering really dangerous territory - so really really important to backup those vital documents, photos etc before playing with Windows folder!"

But yes I agree entirely with this.

"Why would it be so much? Is it because it's a really old computer or is my computer just saving too much/malfunctionin"

It's not just patch files that go into that folder, other software can put things there to help uninstall themselves later. But what sometimes happen is that people just delete the software without properly uninstalling it or the uninstallion fails and leaves stuff behind. Or very often this stuff is just so badly written that it leaves rubbish even after it claims to have done it's job properly.

Plus mix into that that Windows, especially older versions, is really rather rubbish at housekeeping and will over time just get itself into a pickle.

So these things do happen.

So anyway run msizap exactly as specified in the linked page and then see how much space you have. We might then very well need to run that more complicated, but possibly more dangerous, tool to get even more space back.

When I run CC cleaner it says Windows XP SP3.

To get to the list of 'windows installer patch files' I click on WINDOWS, then INSTALLER and then simply '' (this is blue instead of the normal beigey colour - I don't know if this is significant?)

OK so XP SP3 and c:\windows\installer, significant in that it confirms what people are thinking.

I'm confident that running that MSIZAP tool with the specified options is the right first step to take, and then we can escalate onto something else if we need to.

But please do make sure you've got a backup first.