Hard drive bloat

[Tuffrabbit]

The main computer that I'm currently using has a 120GB (actual formatted capacity slightly less) hard drive and on properties shows only 7% capacity left available. Out of curiousity I added all of the programs in the add/remove listing page and the operating system (Windows XP Professional) and came up with only about 35GB. So my question is where the other approxiamately 80GB is hiding at and how do I uncover or expose this "bloat" so that it can be removed or at least what is safe to remove thus freeing up more usable capacity ?

Thanks !

 

[BadThad]

Wow, that is serious man! Even system restore couldn't explain that. Did you format this drive before installing XP on it? Is it formatted in NTFS?

First, download, install and run ccleaner to purge temp files. Then, in Windows Explorer, make sure "show all files" is selected and delete ALL the $uninstall$ folders under the Windows directory, you don't need those. Let us know where you stand after that.

 

[DaiShan]

JDisk Reporter is a great freeware tool that graphically shows you which files and directories are using the bulk of your storage area. I use it a lot on client machines and have been pretty happy with it.

 

[BadThad]

Originally posted by: DaiShan
JDisk Reporter is a great freeware tool that graphically shows you which files and directories are using the bulk of your storage area. I use it a lot on client machines and have been pretty happy with it.

NICE! Thanks!

 

[Tuffrabbit]

Ok ,great ! I'll give both of those methods a try, thanks very much for all of your advice...