Clogged Hard Drive + Windows Media Player 11

Hi there, this may be two posts a software and a hardware but I have problem with both which are related. I spent the whole of yesterday looking through here and applying various things but some help at this point would be appreciated. My friend has a old IBM thinkpad pentium 4 with 256 MB of RAM with a 20 GB hard drive. He is an computer novice so I am trying to help him. The only thibg he wants the computer to do is to play music, and surf the internet. He has a separate 250 GB hard drive for his music.

The problem, at the moment windows media player 11 installed on the C drive, I assume it has to be installed here because it is linked to Windows XP is unable to open his media library stored on his external hard drive it is about 32 GB in Size. The computer appears to be maxing out on RAM.

Using CC cleaner I have tried to remove all unneccesary programs from his c drive, cleaned his registry, and defraged the registry. I also defraged his external drive yesterday using diskkeeperlite. I have run spybot and scanned using AVG, the C drive appears ok. I have cleared all of his music files from the C drive to his external drive.

After doing all this it is telling me that he is still using 15 GB of his 20 GB C drive. I am sure that when he bought Windows XP and prgrams were only using around 3 or 4 GB. So I cannot understand what is taking up the other 12 or so GB.

Main problem we cannot format his hard drive because he has no discs, this would be what I would like to do.

Would his machine struggle opening and playing a large library in any case.

Is it worth him buying more RAM, or simply getting a new machine.

I think the machine could be made ok for him, just need a way of stripping down his C drive so that he can open his library in media player and in explorer.

Any tips on how best to organise library on hard disk for performance too.

Any help greatly appreciated with beers if in North London any time.

Sam. :confused

 

Where abouts in North London

I managed to get a Pentium 3 with 64mb RAM work with XP with no problems at all, was just slow due to outdated technology.

First off, remove WMP 11 and try 10 or even 9, a google search should find it.

There must be some software/data stored away that is eating up memory. Press ctrl + alt + delete, click processes and then order them by the user name. A screen shot of all the processes here could be useful!

Another thing to do is to set to view all files and folders, not have them hidden, and then go through everything and see if there's any folders that are surprisingly large. It's time consuming but can help.

Clear out the cache, temporay internet files and cookies from Internet Explorer (could be clogged with old useless files).

Run Ad-Aware

Post back and let me know results!

 

Finsbury Park.

Ok will do and repost thanks.

Reason we are using media player 11 is because 10 and 9 cannot player all types of format is this correct or is there a way around.

 

Also how do I clear the cache.

Another quick one when I uninstall program using cc cleaner should I also check the program files folder and delete the corresponding folder.

 

There's many alternatives to WMP 11, or any other version of it. Most of which are free ware, there's several listed on this site, make a post in software if u want some more feedback.

They play most codecs, and unlike WMP 11, they are not going to make u pay for the codecs you need.

Windows media player wanted me to pay $15 for a dvd plug in- it's insane, Vista's a $200 dollar operating system, and it won't even let me play dvd's as is.... \

Mediamonkey is nice, but there are many more players/organizers out there, check out the "multimedia" download section, or make a post on software for other's opinions.

 

When in internet options in tools in IE, clear out cookies and temp files.

And yeh check for the folder and delete when uninstalling.

Winamp is also a good alternative to WMP.

 

ccleaner works nicely http://www.majorgeeks.com/download4191.html

 

When you're done with everyone else's advice and you still can't find out where all of the space is being consumed how about checking a few things.

Under the C Drive how big is each folder?
(Make sure hidden files are shown. Tools > Folder Options > View > Show hidden files and folders)

Look for abnormally large folders (note anything way over 2G). Especially the Documents and Settings folder.

Let us know what you find.

 

Believe I already said that confused

 

Screen shots of task manager posted.

 

Sorry anyone know any good print screen programs where I can cut and paste.

 

Oh, sorry, my bad.

 

Just press print screen on the keyboard when you have task manager up, open up paint, paste it in there, save as jpeg and upload to imageshack/photobucket or similar and then paste the link here.

 

Will do with print screen cheers.

Managed to clear 2.5 GB last night by uninstalling a lot of unused software and deleting some big files, clearing cache and history. Left it running adaware, after 20 minutes found 2 infections. Will keep you updated on what these were.

Hard drive down to 12.5 GB now I still think that there is 6 GB or so of rubbish still on there. But not totally sure how big Windows XP SP2 is. Got the RAM down to runing at 196 GB, still not as fast as it should be.

Gonna run CC cleaner again, give it good clear out, and Spybot. Defrag harddrive using disklite.

Did not see any particularly large folders, largest one was something I336Q Cache, not sure if I should delete this one, zip folder. Got a feeling problem could be lots of small files.

 

Sorry about this one, got another weird thing with this machine, in that it does not boot straight into windows instead something called an intel boot agent comes up which we have to escape out of and then windows starts. Any ideas how to remove this.

 

Check in the BIOS (if it's accessible, being an old laptop it might now!) and there should be an option to turn it off.

I believe xp takes up roughly something like 1.89gb.

Where is that folder located? Some I386 folders should not be touched whereas others can be deleted.

EDIT - 1.87gb for windows folder - not far off!!!

 

Hi, finally managed to get jpegs of task manager and explorer showing largest files.

Run adaware and found 3 items tracking cookies, deleted these.

Run Spybot and noticed that things like gain gator etc and webtrends were there think these should be removed but cannot locate, Spybot seems to ignore them.

Also got what I think is a self extracting file, in that microsoft office keeps trying to install itself over and over, not quite sure how to stop this.

Thanks so far guys, Sam.

 

Sorry to sound like a dummy again, how do I access the BIOS and turn off.

Sam

 

Now, my ThinkPads are older than yours so bare with me.

When you boot the machine up hit F1 when the IBM ThinkPad image comes up. It should tell you for sure which key in the lower left when that screen comes up.

The BIOS should appear.

Now you should be at the IBM BIOS Setup Utility

On mine I have to select Startup
Enter
Select Boot
Enter

Now you should be at a Boot menu.

First make sure the:
Intel (R) Boot Agent Version (whatever)
is moved to the bottom or last in order. (using the F5 or F6 keys to move it up or down)

The INS key enables or disables the device (maybe different on your laptop) When disabled an ! (Exclamation) will appear to the left of Intel (R) Boot Agent.....
F10 to save and exit.

Mine is not disabled, so if this causes issues, you should be able to go back and enable it the same way.

Hope this helps. And I don't mean to trend on someone else's advice, but I have over 4 years experience working on IBMs and I love them, so when I see the word IBM or ThinkPad or ThinkCentre I tried to throw in my 2 cents.

 

Another thing I forgot Sam -

Start > Set Program Access & Defaults > Click add/remove software

This is another good way to remove random rubbish that can appear.

Gator is spyware so should be deleted, it usually appears in Program Files somewhere and is commonly linked with P2P apps such as Limewire, Kazaa etc.

I also don't like the look of that MP3Gain in your taskbar, was it installed intentionally?

 

Cheers Mcadam, my mate thinks his IBM is no good but I think its fine just gotta clean it out properley and give him more RAM.

MP3 gain was installed intentionally, cool little program allows you to adjust all the volumes on your tracks so they all set the same on your mp3 player. Saves you having to keep adjusting the volume up and down on your mp3 player.

 

OK.

Looking back at the search screenshot, there's a Word file that seems awfully large - is it needed?