Just did a clean install, yet....

[globiumz]

Some of the HDD didn't get deleted.

 

[Snapster]

372GB, is that what Windows shows is the capacity or is that what was advertised when you got the drive. Even if you manually installed or deleted files they do show as part of the file system. Then there is stuff like the hidden hibernation and page files which can take up to about 2-8GB

 

[globiumz]

But I did clean install what else is needed?

 

[Snapster]

It doesn't matter if you did a clean install, you need to format your drive first if you want everything gone before installing. Basically when you install Windows it creates files on your drive, and if you have stuff already on it (like data/personal files) it'll leave them alone in case you need to use them.

As for the hidden files, the page file you need so don't look into deleting that, hibernation can go if you don't need that functionality on the system but you need to run the command prompt as an aministrator and type in "powercfg ?h off". Vista also used Shadow copy, which basically is a backup copy of your folder at particular dates/points in time so if you've been installing / un-installing in the same place lots you could be eating space up quite quickly. To check this right click on a folder where you installed Oblivion and look for a tab called previous versions and if you have lots then that could explain where some of the space going.

A good tool to visually see where your space is, is a tool called spacemonger (1.4 version) which quickly scans your drive and visually presents where space is used in allowing you to quickly track down large users of space.

 

[globiumz]

Need to install again?

 

[Snapster]

I wouldn't bother with the re-install, just take it as a lesson learned for future 🙂 Just track those files down and delete them using the tools / methods I already suggested. Performance shouldn't drop noticably, unless you are down to almost no free space. As for re-install, that depends on your license, wheather it's OEM etc, usually you can get a few activations out of it fairly easily but it's something you shouldn't really be doing unless you need to format.