Disk Cleanup Woes

That sound you heard is me shooting myself in the foot, again.

I just did a disk cleanup in my new (for me) XP install, something I've done a hundred times on 98 with no problems. I no longer have any program files, and my favorites are long gone. In short, unless there is a fix for this, I may have to reinstall XP on this hard drive. ARRRGH! :cry

Help me. Somebody please help me.

 

Hi Bill, What did you do the cleanup with. Windows built in cleaner?

 

Yeah, look under properties for drive C:, it's one of the options. I'm going to hold off for a day or so to see if someone has any ideas, start moving some of the specialty downloads off this machine, and blank er out.

The fustration level is excrusiating. I mean, the entire programs listr is gone, and every folder on my desktop is too. The programs are there somewhere, but I can't touch em. At least I'm still in learning mode, and haven't done any serious work on this disk. Still, I figure I've put around 30 hours or more of work setting it up so far. I just have to console myself it'll take less time next time.

Will system restore help? Assuming I haven't done what I should have, could it have helped? What areas should I back up against this contingency in the future. Desktop is obvious, but where are the programs stored?

 

As an alternative to reinstalling you can try and repair the XP install from the CD. Not nearly as time-consuming, and also not as likely to wipe things out...

Good luck!

/Mimsy

 

Im unsure tbh bill. Ill let someone else answer. Restore may work, wont do no harm to have a go as you can then restore it back to where you are now if it dosent work. Im only 10 months back into computers, and nearly 3 months online! Ive had i think 4 full reinstalls through making mistakes durrrr!

One thing I would say is use a program like CCleaner to clean up your junk. I never use disk cleanup. I use Diskeeper to defrag instead of windows. And I use another program to clean up my registry. I find them more freindly than XPs tools and they do a way better job.

Someone will solve your woes! Im not too clever on this XP yet and Ill have Vista to figure soon also! We live and learn eh matey! GOOD LUCK

 

I hear you, but when you dump on your computer often enough, a clean install cleans things up well. I had just downloaded and installed my video digitizer software for my Radeon AIW card. Those are the files I want to keep. After I learn them, then I teach my boy and Dad how to use them.

 

You might try an independent program to restore your personal files. If you know the file extensions you might even be able to recover other items.

As you know, system and application restore will only give you back the bundled software that comes with so many OEM machines.

Not that it helps you now, but I always put the installation exe's for programs that I install in a single folder and periodically copy that file to disk, that way if something implodes on me and I need to reinstall my OS I have the base installation files for all of my favorite programs handy. Then it is just a matter of installing them and having them up-date themselves (for those that do... for those that don't, at least I have a list of the programs to go by.)

Hope someone better at this than I am can assist you!
LOADS of luck and good thoughts!

 

Is it just the shortcuts missing for the applications?

 

The icons were cleaned on the desktop,
All references to programs in the Start Menu are gone,
And of course, the favorites (which is the least of it).

I have set everything I could to classic windows format to feel more at home.

 

Ok, go to C:\Documents and Settings\'Your username'\start menu

What do you see inside of there? Take note when you open Documents and Settings, is there a duplicate username folder for you?

 

It appears to be empty. I was going to ask about in another post, but decided to engage self destruct first.

Basically explorer isn't showing all the files. I was doing video digitization experiments. I used search to locate where the files were going, but when I followed the path it comes up empty. I clicked "hidden files" on the properties, with no luck. It is possible I hosed something else up doing the ATI driver installs, XP had installed the M$ stuff, but I wasn't able to access things like the TV tuner, so that was todays project.

Guess I need to figure out how to back stuff up in these areas, for future reference. I think there are files in the folders you asked about, but I can't see them if there are.

Man, this learning curve is steep!

 

I used system restore and it came back, mostly. The only thing I am still having trouble with is AVG insists I do not have sufficient permissions to do an update. The message I'm getting is:

Update process could not be finished due to insufficient free disk space or insufficient user rights.

Go figure.

 

That, and the favorites didn't come back. No big loss there.