Trying to clear HDD space for backup, need to know about certain files

[USMDude]

I'm really low on HDD space on my Inspiron 8200 laptop running Windows XP Professional. It's a 30GB hard drive that's listed as 25.9GB total, 3.13GB free space.

For a while now I've seen several hidden folders in my C:\WINDOWS\ folder that have "Uninstall" in the title such as "$MSI31Uninstall_KB893803$" and "$NtServicePackUninstall$". They're of varying sizes from 100KB to over 160MB, and all have hidden and compressed attributes. I'm wondering if it would be okay to erase these folders or whether they're key to keeping on the hard drive. I could see how if I delete these folders they could free up some serious space.

Thanks.

P.S.: If anybody knows of any places that I could have several gigs of data clogging up my drive without me knowing it and without me being able to see it through Windows Disk Cleanup or the like, then let me know please. Thanks.

[mushroom]

I think the first one contains the uninstall files for the newly released Windows Installer 3.1 and the other are service pack updates uninstall, and i personally dont think its a good idea to mess with them, they are needed if u need to unsinstall the SP updates etc.
see this link
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/875350
If the HDD is running out of space, run a disk clean up, remove temporary files, recycle bin files, and older restore points etc. If the system is fine and has no issues, turning off system restore deletes all restore points and u can then turn it on and set one. Also if u have stuff like music, snaps burn them onto CDs. Uninstall programs that u dont need. Deleting this may cause the drive to be fragmented, dont forget to run chkdsk and defrag to prevent system slowdown.
http://pcworld.about.com/magazine/2007p162id97442.htm

[USMDude]

Originally Posted by mushroom If the HDD is running out of space, run a disk clean up, remove temporary files, recycle bin files, and older restore points etc. If the system is fine and has no issues, turning off system restore deletes all restore points and u can then turn it on and set one. Also if u have stuff like music, snaps burn them onto CDs. Uninstall programs that u dont need. Deleting this may cause the drive to be fragmented, dont forget to run chkdsk and defrag to prevent system slowdown. http://pcworld.about.com/magazine/2007p162id97442.htm

Thing is that I've been doing all this. I do have a lot of music on my computer, but nothing that would clog up my hard drive that badly, and 95% of it is CDs that I own that I put on iTunes so I wouldn't be using my CDs so much.

[glc]

Try installing and running CCleaner. Run it in every profile. Disable system restore - that by itself eats 12% of your drive.