Sluggish PC: Hard drive overload?

guardfish

Member
Jan 20, 2000
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I have a Dell 266 MHz; 128Meg RAM, and partioned 7 gig drive.
Problem: I'm down to 158 megs free on the C drive (2Gig). I would liek to move apps from C:Drive but just don't know which ones, especially the monster WINDOWS ones. Are some of them extraneous and put in ny Uncle Bill to suck up drive space? My system is sluggish as a result or are there other problems. I've used all the Norton Systems Works 2001 programs.

Thanks,

Ed
 

rootaxs

Platinum Member
Oct 22, 2000
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Hmm.. methinks typing C: made a smiley for ya heheh

Anyway, i'd say the reason it's sluggish is due to several factors - harddisk being one of them. If you've only got 158megs left then chances are Windows is having a hard time with the swap file. Try cleaning up your IE Cache first, then look at the windows/temp directory and delete everything there then reboot. Chances are you'll save a lotta space. I once went along without cleaning these two spots and once i did i managed to clean up close to half a gig of space :)

I'd rather you not mess with your windows install, if you can move everything else (e.g. Photoshop, Word, etc.). If after moving them to another drive/partition and some stuff doesn't work just reinstall them. Then again, save yourself the trouble by uninstalling them first then just doing a fresh install on a separate drive/partition.

 

UnixFreak

Platinum Member
Nov 27, 2000
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you dont want to move windows files out of your root partition, only third-party apps. Second, defrag the drive, and a couple other tips.

start>settings>control panel>system>device manager
and open properties on your CD-ROM drive,
take the check out of "auto-insert notification"
click on "computer" and open properties
set computer as a network server, this tends to speed things up a bit,

there are many more tweaks, I am just too tired to think of them right now. Try www.winspeed.com or www.help-connect.com for more tips.

 

sun818

Golden Member
Jul 11, 2000
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You can uninstall your programs and re-install to the other partition. You risk losing your settings, but it is much safer than moving folders. If asked to "Remove Shared Files" during a Uninstall, its a good idea to Just Say N20.
 

mariner

Golden Member
Nov 23, 1999
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I'm running 2k pro and captured a lot of room by deleting my DrWtsn dump file - about 45MB. Just search for "*.log" and you'll find it. Also kill FindFast. Get rid of all the user-created files you don't need. You didn't say how many or what size your partitions are. Set up your apps (Word, WP, Excell, QuatroPro, etc) to save by default onto a partition other than the one your OS is on. Also set Outlook Express, if you're using it, to put its folders on the same partion with Word et al. Try to get everything off your OS partition that doesn't absolutely have to be there. There are also some swap file things you can do but I'm not knowledgeable enough in that area to help you there. Get everything off your desktop, even wall paper, they use memory. Minimize apps when not in use, uses less memory. Listen to your HDD for a lot activity. If you hear a lot of "buzzing" then you are having memory problems.

Then scandisk followed by defrag (as previously suggested). Defrag once/month. Use DiskLite if you don't have another built-in defrager. And I would get rid of all the norton stuff except NAV. You don't really need a lot of stuff to clean up your system. StartUp Cop, Startup Control Panel, RegCleaner, and maybe a few others will be all you need; and maybe not them.

Sorry for the disorganized order of my suggs.
 

sun818

Golden Member
Jul 11, 2000
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Good suggestion Mariner. Just to add: I do not recommend arbitrarily erasing .LOG files. Some .LOG files are used to keep track of files to uninstall during Add/Remove Programs. You could really cause issues if you erase .LOG files.
 

guardfish

Member
Jan 20, 2000
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Guys, you won't believe the source of my problem: I had allocated over 400MB to my virtual memory on my C:\ drive permanently a long time ago instead of letting Windows 98 do it automatically on the hard drive; I let Windows allocate the VM now. However, I have started to implement all of your recommendations and I appreciate it from the bottom of my heart.

Thanks,

Ed