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Uh-oh, I've just filled up my laptops hard drive!

  • 20-06-2010 6:20pm
    #1
    johngalway
    Closed Accounts Posts: 10,271 ✭✭✭✭


    Hi folks,

    As the title says, I've just run out of space :o

    What's a good solution to this problem, I need to keep what I have which is a lot of video, photos and downloaded files.

    Do I need an external hard drive or what? And if I do what's a decent model that is reliable and won't break the bank.

    Thanks :)

    John


Comments

  • #2
    Keano
    Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 12,808 Mod ✭✭✭✭Keano


    johngalway wrote: »
    Hi folks,

    As the title says, I've just run out of space :o

    What's a good solution to this problem, I need to keep what I have which is a lot of video, photos and downloaded files.

    Do I need an external hard drive or what? And if I do what's a decent model that is reliable and won't break the bank.

    Thanks :)

    John
    Pick yourself up a Western Digital external drive online and you won't go wrong.


  • #3
    johngalway
    Closed Accounts Posts: 10,271 ✭✭✭✭johngalway


    Thanks Keano, I like the look of that (totally the wrong thing to say on a computer forum, right? :D ).


  • #4
    emanresu
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 373 ✭✭emanresu


    johngalway wrote: »
    Hi folks,

    As the title says, I've just run out of space :o

    What's a good solution to this problem, I need to keep what I have which is a lot of video, photos and downloaded files.

    Do I need an external hard drive or what? And if I do what's a decent model that is reliable and won't break the bank.

    Thanks :)

    John

    Even if you hadn't run out of space, it would have been a good idea to have an external hard drive anyway, to keep back-up copies of your files. If something had happened to your computer, you could have lost your videos, photos and documents.


  • #5
    lil_lisa
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,829 ✭✭✭lil_lisa


    Maybe even consider defragmenting your laptop. Make a backup of everything and then find the defragmenter option. On windows, its usually in START->All Programs->Accessories->System Tools or something similar. It basically moves everything around on your harddrive to make it more efficient and could get you a bit more space freed up. Also, have a look through your Add/Remove programs in the Control Panel. You'd be surprised how much space you can free up by getting rid of old programs you don't use anymore!


  • #6
    CrinkElite
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 890 ✭✭✭CrinkElite


    lil_lisa wrote: »
    Maybe even consider defragmenting your laptop. Make a backup of everything and then find the defragmenter option. On windows, its usually in START->All Programs->Accessories->System Tools or something similar. It basically moves everything around on your harddrive to make it more efficient and could get you a bit more space freed up. Also, have a look through your Add/Remove programs in the Control Panel. You'd be surprised how much space you can free up by getting rid of old programs you don't use anymore!

    You better make some room first, Defrag will need about 25% free space to work properly in the first place.

    You could use a program like 7zip to compress older unused files.
    http://www.7-zip.org/


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  • #7
    calex71
    Closed Accounts Posts: 13,126 ✭✭✭✭calex71


    My advice would be to keep a back up of the photos on a cd/dvd as well as having on an external harddrive, most other stuff can be replaced photos can't.


  • #8
    Fabritzo
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,521 ✭✭✭Fabritzo


    Clean up system restore points should give you back a chunk of space.


  • #9
    Alun
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 21,499 ✭✭✭✭Alun


    Fabritzo wrote: »
    Clean up system restore points should give you back a chunk of space.
    .. and clean out all the temporary file locations too. You wouldn't believe how much cr@p I've seen on machines that are only a year or two old. CCleaner will do this amongst other stuff as well.


  • #10
    johngalway
    Closed Accounts Posts: 10,271 ✭✭✭✭johngalway


    Thanks for all the replies, you've all been very helpful :) I ordered that external drive, but them some numpty tried to have money off my credit card and I had to cancel it, luckily the bank had spotted it and stopped the card. Need to wait for a new one now.


  • #11
    ED E
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 36,170 ✭✭✭✭ED E


    If you havent already:
    67421-click-disk-cleanup.gif
    1239697623.jpg
    You can pretty safely delete everything there.

    I've just checked mine, there's 8GBs to be cleared! Thats huge for me, usually have only one or two, got lazy.


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  • #12
    RolandIRL
    Closed Accounts Posts: 11,924 ✭✭✭✭RolandIRL


    best thing for cleaning up your hard drive - CCleaner
    this will save you a ton of space. it once saved over 2GB of stuff for me from temp folders :eek:


  • #13
    johngalway
    Closed Accounts Posts: 10,271 ✭✭✭✭johngalway


    I've run disk clean up, defragging at the moment - ahem! well, I was intending to, but I don't have that 15%. Got CCleaner already, I'll run that after, lol.

    I'll look at removing some programs then look at defrag again as the report says I need to do it.


  • #14
    CrinkElite
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 890 ✭✭✭CrinkElite


    whiteman19 wrote: »
    best thing for cleaning up your hard drive - CCleaner
    this will save you a ton of space. it once saved over 2GB of stuff for me from temp folders :eek:

    +1 on Ccleaner. It's a must for any windows user but perticularily in the case of XP.
    It does all the stuff that Microsoft neglected to include in the OS and is entirely trustworthy.

    As whiteman19 has stated, it will free up wast swathes of HDD space and the reg cleaner utility will speed up your boot/shutdown times significantly.

    It's basically the essential bit of Xp that for some reason, they never included.

    Great startup program management also, it's just win all the way and it's free!


  • #15
    johngalway
    Closed Accounts Posts: 10,271 ✭✭✭✭johngalway


    By the skin of my teeth I managed to "make" 15% free space, delete, delete, delete....

    Running defrag now, I hope it'll be worth it lol.


  • #16
    d93c2inhxfok4y
    Closed Accounts Posts: 360 ✭✭d93c2inhxfok4y


    CrinkElite wrote: »
    +1 on Ccleaner. It's a must for any windows user but perticularily in the case of XP.
    It does all the stuff that Microsoft neglected to include in the OS and is entirely trustworthy.

    As whiteman19 has stated, it will free up wast swathes of HDD space and the reg cleaner utility will speed up your boot/shutdown times significantly.

    It's basically the essential bit of Xp that for some reason, they never included.

    Great startup program management also, it's just win all the way and it's free!

    This sounds excellent, particularly startup. My laptop is a year old and startup is very, very slow. I've got not extra startup programs, so I was thinking of just running a defrag, but didn't have the time. This is highly recommended then? Maybe running that and a defrag will speed it up. Is there anything to be wary of, what does it delete etc?

    Thanks for the info :)


  • #17
    RolandIRL
    Closed Accounts Posts: 11,924 ✭✭✭✭RolandIRL


    Alessia Careful Knitter wrote: »
    This sounds excellent, particularly startup. My laptop is a year old and startup is very, very slow. I've got not extra startup programs, so I was thinking of just running a defrag, but didn't have the time. This is highly recommended then? Maybe running that and a defrag will speed it up. Is there anything to be wary of, what does it delete etc?

    Thanks for the info :)
    you can select what CCleaner gets rid of and what startup programs run. just have a look through the left hand side before you analyse and deselect anything you might want to keep.

    also from piriform, there's Defraggler which is what i use for defragging my laptop.


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