Unable to determine what is using up my disk space

I have a 20G HD - and after doing the "Disk Cleanup" thing in WindowsXP
Home as well as emptying my Trash bin, I still can't free up any disk space.

My applicating programs(graphics) will no longer run because there is
not enough disk space.

I have the same problem with my external 80G HD. The only file folder
visible uses only 1.9G but the drive properties indicated 5.37G of USED
disk space.

Where do I look & what can I do to free up drive space?

I don't think that it is a virus because my Virus detection program
(with updated signature files) doesn't detect anything.

Richard

"Richard L. McCulley" <rlmcculley.TakeThisOut@kdsi.net> wrote in message
news:vneo2ftis63t03@corp.supernews.com...
 > I have a 20G HD - and after doing the "Disk Cleanup" thing in WindowsXP
 > Home as well as emptying my Trash bin, I still can't free up any disk
space.
 >
 > My applicating programs(graphics) will no longer run because there is
 > not enough disk space.
 >
 > I have the same problem with my external 80G HD. The only file folder
 > visible uses only 1.9G but the drive properties indicated 5.37G of USED
 > disk space.
 >
 > Where do I look & what can I do to free up drive space?
 >
 > I don't think that it is a virus because my Virus detection program
 > (with updated signature files) doesn't detect anything.

A few things you can do:

1) Go to START >> SEARCH >> FOR FILES AND FOLDERS
In the input box, enter *.dmp
This will find any memory dumps... you can delete those (these are
your computers memory written to disk when it crashes)
While there, you might want to look for files such as: *.tmp, *.bak,
*.old
** Use the usual caution with deleting anything off your computer **

2) Start up Internet Explorer... go to TOOLS >> INTERNET OPTIONS and click
"Delete Files"
This is your IE cache files. You might want to check the setting,
sometimes this can be set very high (500MB or more... you really only need
50-100MB unless you visit alot of the same sites over and over again)

3) Now, go to MY COMPUTER and click on your hard drive. Go into your
WINDOWS folder (it might be named something other than windows).
Look for files that are named something like: $blahblahblahblah$
(starts with a $ and ends with a $)
If you don't see these files, you might need to enable seeing hidden
files and/or system files
You can delete all of these (not your windows directory, just the
folders that start with $ and end with $)
These folders all hold the temporary files created when you
download a windows update (so if you've downloaded alot of them, you will
see alot of these files).
**NOTE: These folders hold the uninstall information for all the
windows patches and upgrades you've downloaded... so if you delete them, you
will free up alot of space, but you won't be able to uninstall any of the
windows upgrades (but then again, have you ever done anything like that?
uninstalled a windows service pack?)

4) Check your Antivirus software...
If you received a few hundred/thousand/more emails from the latest
SWAN virus, then chances are your AV software has a copy of each of those
emails in its QUARANTINE section.

5) If your "deleted" folder in whatever email program you are using.
If you are using Outlook Express, as an example, even if you get 100s
of spam emails... they just sit in your DELETED folder until you actually
clear it (go in there and highlight everything (CTRL-A) and press delete)

6) If you have a TEMP folder on your C drive (C:\TEMP) you might look in
there and see if there is anything taking up alot of space... typically your
TEMP folder should be empty most of the time (but not all of the time)

7) In your C:\ root folder, check the size of your pagefile.sys file... it
should be about 300-500MB in size typically... if its much bigger than that,
you might want to check your page file settings (right click MY COMPUTER)

If you use ACDSee or similar image viewing software, you might check if
they have the "cache thumbs in database" option set up. It does save time,
but if you've had this computer for say 3 or 4 years and download images
(and view with ACDSee) regularily, then you could have a GB or two tied up
in the thumbnail cache

Other than that... you can look into a few other possibilities...

You might want to check your ADD/REMOVE PROGRAMS to see what you have
installed and it should list the disk space that program takes up (some of
them really suck up disk space)

Or... if you have played alot of games on that computer, most of them leave
behind save game files. IE: If you played Divine Divinity and had 10 save
game slots used up... that could account for 600 MB right there (in this
case, each save slot takes up 50-60MB and save game folders do not get
deleted when you uninstall the game)

Finally... if you just can't figure out where the space has gone, you can go
to MY COMPUTER and select your C: drive... and then going from folder to
folder you can right click on them and select PROPERTIES... This will tell
you how many files are in the folder and how much space that folder (and all
its sub folders) take up.

For some folders you will have to go down deeper (ie: doing that on your
PROGRAMS folder will have no use to you whatsoever... so you'll need to go
in there and click on each software group)

And then, if you get a folder that looks anomalous (ie: its not PROGRAMS or
DOCUMENTS or WINDOWS and it says its taking up 10GB by itself, you can
figure maybe something is up in there

Anyhoo... hope that helps...

Clint<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->