Solve : Hard Drive Space Mysteriously Taken Up?

1.	Solve : Hard Drive Space Mysteriously Taken Up?
Answer» My laptop kept overheating and snapping off. Among other things I checked the hard drive free space. I had less than 600 MB free [out of 37.2G capacity]. I started deleting things and moving things onto a flash drive. I found a two-year old file backup put on my computer by a Norton tech. I deleted it and freed up over a 1GB of space. The laptop still kept overheating, but at least I had that 1GB+ of free space. In the past few days I had about 2 days of blissfully long computer sessions, fooling around with my FILES and searching the net. I added very little to my files and haven't knowingly downloaded any programs. Then I got a message for Microsoft Security Essentials saying a new version was available. I downloaded it, installed it, did a quick scan - and my computer overheated and snapped off. After letting it cool I turned it on and checked the hard drive capacity. I'm back down to less than 900 MB of space. I've checked the Installed Programs and there's nothing I don't recognize, and MS Security Essentials certainly doesn't take up a gig. Is there some other place I'm supposed to look to find out what's clogging my hard drive? By the way, I couldn't think what to name this post. Saying the space was mysteriously TAKEN up makes it sound like it was taken up in a UFO.you might try erase by (heidi) and erase the free space or ccleaner ( google it!) and use the drive wiper (free space only!) and see if that clears things up.Why are you suggesting HDD wiping tools for this issue ? ? You can use an app like treesize to see what is taking up space: http://www.jam-software.com/freeware/ BTW, maybe it's just me, but your avatar is VERY annoying Quote from: Allan on JANUARY 28, 2011, 06:37:46 AM treesize Thanks for the link. One item on my list is ARCSOFT_TRIAL. It is 267.2 MB. I don't know what it is, but I'm guessing it came pre-installed with my laptop. I didn't see it listed under "All Programs", so I typed it into RUN, and got a message saying the file wasn't found. I typed it into Search as a file name, and got a message saying nothing was found in all locations. I also typed it in as a location and nothing was found. How else can I search for it? Until I open it I don't know if I want it. It was last accessed last June. Modified to add: I clicked the listing on my TreeSize report and clicked to open it. I see the sub folders, but I still don't know what the thing is. I had done a net search for ArcSoft, and it could be anything they produced back in 2004. How do I know if it's something I need? Probably one of these: http://www.arcsoft.com/en-us/download_trial.asp?id=0We suggest buying a new Hard Drive. This was six months ago, even lower now. Hard-drive prices fall Quote from: Allan on January 28, 2011, 06:37:46 AM BTW, maybe it's just me, but your avatar is VERY annoying No, it's not just you.I deleted the ArcSoft product figuring if it was something I wanted in the future I could download a new trial version. I found I had some deleted backups still in the recycle bin and emptied the whole bin. Now I'm back to over a gig of free space. The laptop still overheats, and now I have to look into what the heck the 40-42 processes listed in the Task Manager are and how to unpin some of them from START.

Answer»

My laptop kept overheating and snapping off. Among other things I checked the hard drive free space. I had less than 600 MB free [out of 37.2G capacity]. I started deleting things and moving things onto a flash drive. I found a two-year old file backup put on my computer by a Norton tech. I deleted it and freed up over a 1GB of space. The laptop still kept overheating, but at least I had that 1GB+ of free space.

In the past few days I had about 2 days of blissfully long computer sessions, fooling around with my FILES and searching the net. I added very little to my files and haven't knowingly downloaded any programs. Then I got a message for Microsoft Security Essentials saying a new version was available. I downloaded it, installed it, did a quick scan - and my computer overheated and snapped off. After letting it cool I turned it on and checked the hard drive capacity. I'm back down to less than 900 MB of space. I've checked the Installed Programs and there's nothing I don't recognize, and MS Security Essentials certainly doesn't take up a gig. Is there some other place I'm supposed to look to find out what's clogging my hard drive?

By the way, I couldn't think what to name this post. Saying the space was mysteriously TAKEN up makes it sound like it was taken up in a UFO.you might try erase by (heidi) and erase the free space or ccleaner ( google it!) and use the drive wiper (free space only!) and see if that clears things up.Why are you suggesting HDD wiping tools for this issue ? ?

You can use an app like treesize to see what is taking up space: http://www.jam-software.com/freeware/

BTW, maybe it's just me, but your avatar is VERY annoying Quote from: Allan on JANUARY 28, 2011, 06:37:46 AM

treesize

Thanks for the link.

One item on my list is ARCSOFT_TRIAL. It is 267.2 MB. I don't know what it is, but I'm guessing it came pre-installed with my laptop. I didn't see it listed under "All Programs", so I typed it into RUN, and got a message saying the file wasn't found. I typed it into Search as a file name, and got a message saying nothing was found in all locations. I also typed it in as a location and nothing was found. How else can I search for it? Until I open it I don't know if I want it. It was last accessed last June.

Modified to add: I clicked the listing on my TreeSize report and clicked to open it. I see the sub folders, but I still don't know what the thing is. I had done a net search for ArcSoft, and it could be anything they produced back in 2004. How do I know if it's something I need? Probably one of these: http://www.arcsoft.com/en-us/download_trial.asp?id=0We suggest buying a new Hard Drive.
This was six months ago, even lower now.
Hard-drive prices fall Quote from: Allan on January 28, 2011, 06:37:46 AM

BTW, maybe it's just me, but your avatar is VERY annoying

No, it's not just you.I deleted the ArcSoft product figuring if it was something I wanted in the future I could download a new trial version. I found I had some deleted backups still in the recycle bin and emptied the whole bin. Now I'm back to over a gig of free space. The laptop still overheats, and now I have to look into what the heck the 40-42 processes listed in the Task Manager are and how to unpin some of them from START.

Solve : Hard Drive Space Mysteriously Taken Up?

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