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Original poster

Very old laptop, running slow, hard drive too full to do disk defragment. What shall I do?

31 replies

SoftKittyWarmKitty · 26/11/2011 16:08

I've posted here before about my laptop (5.5 years old) being really slow and was advised to delete stuff off the hard drive, do a disk cleanup and disk defragment. I've done the first two but when I try to disk defragment it says I need at least 15% of free space on the C drive before it can do this effectively and I only have 4%.

Is there anything I can do to enable disk defragment? Or is my ancient laptop doomed? Sad

OP posts:
BadgersPaws · 26/11/2011 17:04

Empty your recycle bin (right click on it and select empty), how much free space do you have on C: now?

I still suspect that you won't have very much, and therefore defraying isn't really what you want to be doing right now. As said in the previous thread you want to uninstall programs from C:, reinstall them on D: and move your own files over to your D: drive too.

So until you get that 15% free on your disk keep chasing ways of making more space. Once you get that at least 15% free then there's another trick that I want to do that might speed things up, but it's pretty pointless until we get that amount of free space. Windows really doesn't like running on a disk that's nearly full.

Original poster
SoftKittyWarmKitty · 26/11/2011 17:05

Thanks, will do that shortly. When I move things from C to D, do I just drag them across?

OP posts:
BadgersPaws · 26/11/2011 17:11

Your own files (that is photos and documents) can usually be dragged across from C: to D: That drag "should" do a copy and still leave the original files on your C: drive so once you've copied the files to D: check that they work and only then go ahead and delete the ones that are on C:

Applications, such as Firefox or Word, should not just be moved in this way (well some very well written ones might work but many will just break). You need to uninstall them from C: and reinstall them onto D:

Once you have deleted/uninstalled stuff from C: remember to empty the recycle bin as that should actually give you the space back.

Original poster
SoftKittyWarmKitty · 26/11/2011 17:19

Thanks, will give it a go.

OP posts:
Original poster
SoftKittyWarmKitty · 26/11/2011 22:44

Right, I've moved photos from C to D, and have been doing the disk defragment for around 3 hours. However, I want to go to bed. I don't want to leave my laptop on overnight, so can I pause it or will that mean it starts all over again from scratch tomorrow?

OP posts:
JustRedbin · 26/11/2011 22:49

Unless you're running off of the battery , just leave it on. Defrag can take a lot of hours.

Original poster
SoftKittyWarmKitty · 26/11/2011 22:53

Really? Leave it on all night? Bit concerned it will overheat and set on fire or something.

Might switch it off and start again first thing.

OP posts:
JustRedbin · 26/11/2011 22:57

So long as it is on a flat surface the internal fan will keep it cool enough. My work laptop is on for 5 days continually. My home PC is never switched off.

BadgersPaws · 26/11/2011 23:00

How much space is free on C: now, you did say "Capacity is 26.3GB. Used space is 25.7GB. Free space is 597M", what's it go to now?

Defragging alone may not produce any speed change at all, what we need to do is to defrag the virtual memory page files on the drive, and that isn't done by a normal defrag and takes a bit of fiddling. It isn't worth doing until we get a decent amount of space on the drive.

JustRedbin · 26/11/2011 23:04

I've just reread this thread. Badgers paws is quite right. You need to sort out the contents of your C drive, and be quite ruthless about it. Transfer any photos, music etc to CD or DVD.

Original poster
SoftKittyWarmKitty · 26/11/2011 23:27

I've switched it off because it's very old, gets pretty hot and I didn't trust leaving it on. Will start again first thing and leave it on all day.

I think there's about 40% of free space on C drive now iirc, but will check the exact amount tomorrow when I switch it back on, and let you know.

Tried saving my photos to DVDs earlier but it wouldn't let me. Have moved them to D drive instead and will get an external drive to back up to.

Thanks for your help, will be back tomorrow with a 'space on C drive' update.

OP posts:
BadgersPaws · 26/11/2011 23:45

If you've got about 40% free space then I think that we're good to go...

So follow this quite carefully and precisely...

  1. Open "System Utility" in Control Panel. You may have to get there by clicking Performance and Maintenance from the Control Panel and then clicking System.
  2. Select the Advanced tab, click the Settings button under Performance, select the Advanced tab of Performance Options, and click "Change" under "Virtual Memory".
  3. Look at the the "Paging file size" shown for drives other than C:, if there are values for any drive other than C: stop right here and come back and let me know.
  4. Select "No Paging File" option and then click Set. Now reboot the machine.
  5. Defrag the machine.
  6. Repeat step 1 & 2 to get back to the virtual memory setting. Select "System Managed Size", click "Set" and then reboot the machine again.

What we're trying to do is to get Windows to let go of the space on the disk drive that it's been using as "virtual memory" for when run out of actual physical memory. With that let go we can the properly defrag the disk. We then tell Windows to use the disk as extra memory once again and it should grab a nice big contiguous chunk of it as and when it needs it.

BadgersPaws · 26/11/2011 23:47

"Tried saving my photos to DVDs earlier but it wouldn't let me"

Sorry I meant to comment on that...

I think there are two main possible causes for this, maybe you weren't using the right sort of disk, or Windows needs to make an "image" of the DVD it's trying to burn on your C: drive before it can actually go ahead and burn it. And you didn't have room for it to do that, so it moaned.

JustRedbin · 27/11/2011 09:55

Forgot last night - download CC Cleaner from piriform -It's free and gets rid of an awful lot of crap, including the index.dat files associated with IE.

Original poster
SoftKittyWarmKitty · 27/11/2011 13:27

badgerspaws Help! I did steps 1-4 and revolted but it came up with messages saying I don't have enough virtual memory and it won't let me defrag. It also won't let me back into system to reset it back.

Help! What do I do?

OP posts:
Original poster
SoftKittyWarmKitty · 27/11/2011 13:28

Rebooted not revolted, effing phone.

OP posts:
SardineQueen · 27/11/2011 13:33

have you emptied your temp folders deleted cookies etc

Original poster
SoftKittyWarmKitty · 27/11/2011 13:55

I just left it 15 mins and tried defrag again. I could get to it this time but it says 'this version of defrag only allows one disk defragment' so I can't do it.

So went back to your steps to set back the virtual memory setting. It's now letting me do this but I after clicking 'change' under 'virtual memory' I'm unsure what to do. At the mo, 'no paging file' is ticked as per your instructions. Do I need to tick 'custom size' or 'system managed size' to get it back to normal? If custom size, I need to input figures for 'initial size MB' and 'maximum size MB', but I've no idea what these should be.

OP posts:
BadgersPaws · 27/11/2011 15:27

It sounds like you're using some odd tool to defray with and not what comes with windows (which will have no limits). Exactly what are you doing to defray the machine?

When you turn virtual memory back on select the system managed option. However we do want to defray the machine with paging turned off.

When you reboot the machine at the end of step 4 above reboot in Safe mode, instructions for this should be on the other thread you started.

Then for step 5 follow these instructions to defrag the disk:
support.microsoft.com/kb/314848

Original poster
SoftKittyWarmKitty · 27/11/2011 15:33

Thanks, I'll need to print all these threads out at work tomorrow so I've got all the info to hand.

In the meantime, so I can use it again I've clicked 'system managed size', then set, but when I click ok a message has come up saying 'another file exists with the filename c:/pagefile.sys' do you wish to overwrite the existing file with a pagefile?' Do I click yes or no?

OP posts:
BadgersPaws · 27/11/2011 15:43

Click yes, that's the old page file which we stopped using.

Thinking some more definitely reboot in safe mode before doing the defrag and double check how you're defragging. That some other use limited tool is jumping in is very worrying...

Original poster
SoftKittyWarmKitty · 27/11/2011 16:51

Right, I've got everything back working again. I'll print off all the info on here, look into starting in safe mode and check out the defrag thing, then give it another go (probably Thurs or Fri when I'm not at work and have time to deal with it).

Thanks for all your help.

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overthemill · 27/11/2011 22:40

been reading this with interest - have a laptop bought 2008 which i think is pretty new really but it runs soo slowly. keep getting 'your virtual memory is low' message, will doing those instructions 1 - 4 help me?

BadgersPaws · 28/11/2011 09:15

The instructions 1-6 above (1-4 alone would do more harm than good, you need to get to 6) are for a particular PC in a particular state. I suspect that yours is possibly similar, however the big questions that came before 1-6 are how big are/is your disk drive(s), how much space is left and what Operating System do you have?

overthemill · 29/11/2011 17:01

vista home basic
4 GB thats what the laptop tells me under name
and how do i know how much is left?

sorry am a complete novice

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