Where's the Beef?

[WJWheels]

I'm working on a PC that has almost nothing "extra" on it; no movies, no songs, not even pictures. It has only the basic programs that come with an HP and is using XP Home as the O.S.

However.... there's almost 11 gigabytes of spaced used on the 30 gig hdd! How can I tell what it is that's taking up so much space? I'm not that familiar with XP setups.

TIA

[Corky]

A quick way would be to go to www.belarc.com and run the analysis program. This will show everything installed on the computer.

[lil Jimmie]

EasyCleaner has a nice feature that shows where, what and how much data is on the HDD.

[sdkfz]

your system restore and internet cache might be set high and be full,

hows about a HP restore image (instead of getting the XP disk they leave it on the HD)

[Iman74]

Also check the temp directories and especially temporary internet files. Depending where you go and how often you search, you can eat up space on that alone.

Now I think about it, run disk cleanup and see how much garbage is found.

[WJWheels]

I ran disk cleanup and very little is there. A few thousand kb in "compress old files" is the most of any category. I do know that the system was saved for "uninstall" when sp1 was added.
There's 57mb in windows/temp and a bunch of $ntuninstall files, but none that are really sizeable.

[Panama Red]

Might want to go back in disk cleanup, wj, and click the more options tab and clean up the restore area. As sdkfz suggested, the restore files could be the bulk of the extra file storage. Clean up will remove all but the latest restore point.

[scalifash]

I have similar space issues with my little compaq. The only difference is that compaq puts their restore files on a separate partition.

Their restore files take up just under 4GB on it's own partition. Windows XP (Pro mind you, I don't know if there's much of a difference) takes up like 1.5GB. And then there's a bunch of programs taking up space. If you have Encarta or Works or something that could be responsible for a bit.

If you have restored the system and not reformatted you may have old "User Documents & Settings" files which take up loads of space with old cache stuff, I'm losing about 1.5GB to old User files I have to get around to deleting.

There's a great program which will tell you where all the space went, called "TreeSize" from http://www.jam-software.com. That will tell you exactly what folders are taking up how much space.

[Panama Red]

scalifash, you sure your restore partition is the where the files build up from XP restore points? I thought HP, Compaq and others set up a "restore partition" on the Hard drive in place of giving you a restorations disk or copy of the XP software. Don't think that partition grows and shrinks, think the size is fixed at time of shipment. HP suggests to copy that partition to DVD or CD's if you get a burner with your system so as to have an actual backup/restore disk. I think the "restore point" files show up as "green" colored files in disk defragmenter as part of the os partition and are considered "non moveable". I could be wrong, but that's how I understand the two to work.

[WJWheels]

Great info and suggestions all! I washed my hands of the PC as all is running smoothly. In fact I just took it back and figure he'll never need the space that's being wasted (?).

Thanks to everyone.

[scalifash]

By "Restore Files" I was indeed referring to the Compaq restore for XP and software that came with it; that partition doesnt have any files that change in size. Oddly enough I was issued both the original-file-partition AND restore discs for both Compaq Software and the Windows XP Home disc (I have since upgraded to Pro). I think it was because I bought the computer only a few months after XP came out and some note explaining some error that had been occuring was issued with the discs and it also explained that you needed to use the Windows XP disc to solve it if it occured. I never encountered the error but now I have a spare XP Home install disc.

Heh, sorry for the rambling; it's that mid day surge of energy.