Laptop Help!
Okay, my old Dell is finally nearing max. capacity. I've done everything I can do to fix that - deleting old files, deleting cookies, histories, saving files to disk and then deleting from the drive and it STILL says I'm at the limit. How do I increase the disk space on a laptop? Can I buy more space and somehow install it? Should I just say fuck it all and buy a new lap top (just bought a mini less than a year ago but I only use that when I travel - there's nothing really on it)? Is there an external drive I can buy and easily tap into? EASILY - 'cause I'm purely ornamental. If God had made me a computer expert on top of being so fucking cute, it just would have been bragging.
Comments
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Store stuff like photos, videos etc on a removable thumb/usb drives. If you have large porn collection, or store pictures of your "fucking cute" self that will free up a lot space.
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I did that! All my pictures, all my word documents that I need, everything simple like that I downloaded to a disk and deleted off my drive.
Granted my megapixals are huge but jeez... -
You saved large files to an external hard drive and then deleted the files from your Dell right? That should free up space. Maybe you need to make sure to empty your trash? Or try restarting and see how much space you have?
Kind of weird... -
Check to see if you have applications you don't use, and uninstall them
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Have you run the disk cleanup utility?
http://www.theeldergeek.com/disk_cleanup_utility.htm
That will help a little.
Then you can run a search that lists all the largest files on the hard drive by file size to see what else can be deleted or moved to another drive.
To do this, go into the start menu and look along the lower right (I think...sorry, am typing this on my mobile) just above the log off and "Run" options for the "Search" menu option.
Once in the search area, set an advanced search for all files ( "*.*" ) with file size greater than 10000KB (for example).
After that runs, sort the results by file size (descending) er voilà, delete or move any obvious huge ones you don't need on that drive.
Don't forget to "empty recycle bin" afterward to make sure the drive space is freed up.
See how that goes and let us know.
- j
(stuck in de slope awaiting car tune-up) -
Oh yeah, and definitely do what Flexi mentions...
Go in your control panel and look for the "Add/Remove Software" one (in "classic view" of Control Panel it's one of the first few programs listed).
That loads a list of programs you have installed and that can be a good place to delete things you don't use. -
I"ve done the add/remove thing - I've dumped everything that I don't use. Problem is, I have no idea what some of the shit is and I'm afraid to get rid of it. It won't even let me run a defrag because there's that little disk space. I've emptied the trash, gone thru explorer and deleted anything and everything that I know I don't use. I managed to clear up 3%. When I restarted it, it told me I was back to 0 again. Think it could be a virus?
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If your laptop is suitable for your needs, you could just get a bigger internal drive for it rather than a whole new laptop.
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Clone your drive (to save what you need) and wipe your drive, reinstalling your OS. Buy an external USB drive and start all over with a larger internal drive too, if you want. Don't migrate any compromised/infected files from the clone of your original drive. Also... don't use Windows.
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I don't know what you two are talking about. Clone what? Internal implies I need to put it inside the laptop. Did you not read the part about me not knowing how to do any of that crap? Now stop being hoity toity computer nerds and explain it to me in English.
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You said you moved everything off that you *need* -- really? How small is your hard drive?
You should buy an $80 external hard drive at Best Buy or Target or wherever and REALLY remove the files you don't need. It just acts as a second drive. Instead of finding the pictures of your cute self on your C: drive, they will be on your G: drive or whatever get's automatically selected.
Are you a graphic artist or film editor? With huge files? I find this "it's full" story hard to believe unless something is majorly wrong.
I'm surprised you can even run programs with only 3% free... what with the need for creating temporary files etc. -
How old is it and how small of a hard drive does it have?
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That's what I'm saying - there's something majorly wrong. I removed iTunes (to a disk), I removed all photos, word documents, any games I had saved, I went through and made sure I had no duplicates of anything, erased all "shortcut" files, deleted all the cookies and histories. The only files I haven't removed are those I'm unsure about or I know are needed to operate the system. I have no idea what the problem is.
It's pretty old - maybe 5 years? Honestly, I don't even remember size of the drive. -
Dude, just go get an external drive.
You can get 1 terabyte for 100 bucks.
http://tinyurl.com/ye9sq6o -
Well, wouldn't logic dictate that if I removed files from the hard drive and it's still telling me that there's no space on the drive, there might be a problem? So installing a drive or adding an external drive might not solve my problem, no? I think I'm going to throw it in the trash and buy a new one. I can't take this drama. Drama causes wrinkles on my cute face. I just can't have that.
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Is your drive partitioned?
....is there a D drive? -
whynot_31 wrote: Is your drive partitioned?
What the hell does that even mean? There is a D drive - for CDs.
....is there a D drive? -
Anastasia Beaverhausen wrote: [quote=whynot_31]Is your drive partitioned?
What the hell does that even mean? There is a D drive - for CDs.
....is there a D drive?
Some people make an artificial partition that makes their hard drive into two drives (i.e. instead of just a C, you have a C and D). For extra fun, they could have called it a different letter.
In this example, each occupies half of the original drive. They do it to have programs on C and "other crap" on D. It helps them have order in their life.
...but it also makes the hard drive appear half its size, if you don't realize there is a D.
This would not be the CD drive. If your computer is five years old, it may be genuinely full (hard drives were smaller than, and you may be a crap collector).
You could take it to a computer person, and they could tell you for pretty cheap. ...or blog about if for free, your call.
I'd take Lo Kee's suggestion and get a external drive..... -
Anastasia Beaverhausen wrote: [quote=whynot_31]Is your drive partitioned?
What the hell does that even mean? There is a D drive - for CDs.
....is there a D drive?
Beave,
Perhaps this will help explain:
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That video needs music.
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Anastasia Beaverhausen wrote: That video needs music.
but I've gotta admit, he's explains it far better than I. -
I feel ya. I've had my Dell desktop for 6 years. I had to delete/move to usb a ton of music and picture files because it was sooo slow and driving me nuts. Space did free up. It's still kinda slow sometimes , tho. I gave up and got a HP lap top.I use both. Depends on if I feel like sitting on a chair or laying on the couch.
Are you checking the exact number of free space before you delete and then checking it again after to see if the number of free space went up? Or are you just going by the color on the graph? -
Something sounds wrong. When you think about it, the older/smaller the hard disk is, the more space should be freed up (percentage-wise) after deleting files. If you had, say, a 100GB drive then, removing all photos, games, music should free up a very significant chunk of the drive.
The HDD could easily be showing its age after five years, those things don't last forever. It might be dying on you, or maybe something went kooky in the OS.
The suggestion to wipe and reinstall Windows is a good troubleshooting step but maybe it's a little too drastic for you to do on your own. I'd show it to your nearest trustworthy computer expert, it sounds like it's more than just running out of space. -
Well, the same thing happened with my Vaio. Did everything that you did. Still there. Had computer wiz hubby look at it. He got bored and just bought me a new one.
That's how we solved the problem.
BUT! It seems that basically pc's store and hid shit from you you won't ever be able to access. Think of it this way- in all your web surfing and doc writing, you collected dust- this dust can never be cleaned up, it just accumulates. It takes up space on the hard drive and turns to CEMENT.
Didn't you get a bebeh computer not too long ago? -
Stop talking about DUST! You know how OCD I am!! Yes, I have my wittle bebeh mini but I don't want to overload it.
I'm starting to think there really is something wrong with it. I think it's slightly retahded. I don't know how to wipe and reinstall Windows.
If Daver looks at my computer will he buy me a new one, too? I'm the good one, remembah?? -
I second Whynots suggestion- if your laptop is partitioned there's a chance that there's crap on the other drive that you can't really see but is taking up space- this exact issue happened on my year old thinkpad- suddenly, for seemingly no reason, the drive was full. I emptied EVERYTHING off of it and it still only showed about 2% free, I was getting irritating errors every 30 seconds about the drive being full, etc...after MUCH MUCH MUCH poking around for about a day I discovered that lenovo had some automatic backup creating program turned on (not even through vista, but through the lenovo startup prompt before windows even started) which had been taking copies of my system for restoration purposes- when browsing my hard-drive it showed that I had like 80% of it full but vista classified it as "unknown" (versus an application or something.) It was all those backups on the separate partition. After I deleted those my system was totally cleared out and worked like new.
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I'm gonna search for .dmp files when I get home. I think that might be a culprit, too. I'll check into the partitioned thingy as well.
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Anastasia Beaverhausen wrote:
I'll ask, but you'll have to work out a re-payment deal....and when it comes to you two, I don't even want to know...
If Daver looks at my computer will he buy me a new one, too? I'm the good one, remembah??
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Open up "My Computer""
What drives do you see should be at least a C: and maybe a D; if you have a CD/DVD installed
Right click on the C; drive and select properties what are the used space, free space and capacity
What model is your Dell? -
SUCCESS! It was a huge cache of .dmp files. Fucking bastards. I just cleared out 50% of my drive. My God. I just realized, I'm cute AND smart.
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