No Free Disk Space

My brother had gotten himself a new laptop and so I can use his old one. it is an older Compaq laptop running Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition. the total HardDrive size is 67.1GB and there is only 1.31GB left, I went to check and see the programs on it so I could uninstall a few and free up some disk space. but, to no avail there is only a reported 21.3GB. I searched through the forums and found a few programs to help me find out where the disk space had gone and found WinDirStat-a program that shows space that is being taken up.

http://s31.photobucket.com/albums/c352/Valateneze/?action=view&current=NewBitmapImage-1.jpg

as you can see, <unknown> is taking up 43.4GB of the HD space and I would like some help figuring out how I can free this space up.

 

http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=106650

 

System restore points are a big hog of disk space and if your brother has created a lot of them it could be a problem, so if the laptop is in good shape and running well you can remove all system restore points except the last one.

* Click Start, Run and type CLEANMGR and press Enter
* Select the hard disk partition and press OK
* At the top of the dialog, click the tab More Options
* Under System Restore section, click the button "Clean up..."

or you can use this but it will remove ALL restore points.

1. Click Start, right-click My Computer, and then click Properties.
2. In the System Properties dialog box, click the System Restore tab.
3. Click to select the Turn off System Restore check box. Or, click to select the Turn off System Restore on all drives check box.
4. Click OK.
5. When you receive the following message, click Yes to confirm that you want to turn off System Restore:
You have chosen to turn off System Restore. If you continue, all existing restore points will be deleted, and you will not be able to track or undo changes to your computer.

Do you want to turn off System Restore?
After a few moments, the System Properties dialog box closes.

Steps to turn on System Restore

1. Click Start, right-click My Computer, and then click Properties.
2. In the System Properties dialog box, click the System Restore tab.
3. Click to clear the Turn off System Restore check box. Or, click the Turn off System Restore on all drives check box.
4. Click OK.

After a few moments, the System Properties dialog box closes.

 

this didnt work the first time:
http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c352/Valateneze/NewBitmapImage-1.jpg

Well my younger brother decided it would be a good idea to try and clear the system so he could beackdoor his way into the computer with no password. my brothers account no longer exists but it seems to be taking up space still. I want to clear this unknown diskspace that i can no longer access.
I have cleaned out the computer twice now using your method and that doesnt seem to be doing anything.

 

Hover your mouse over that large yellow box, it should tell you what file that is on the bottom of the program.

 

in the picture the yellow is selected. that is all the information that i can get from this program. it s in drive c:\ somewhere somehow and I cant find a way to clear out this space. I have used all recommended drive cleaners and uninstalled many programs. somebody please help me with this problem.

 

This is a very good uninstaller,it's not free but it does give you a free fully working trial period (15 days i think)
It has a number of clean up tools and in my personal opinion is the best.

http://majorgeeks.com/Your_Uninstaller_2008_d2439.html

 

I'm kind of confused? It sounds to me like that space is being taken up by one (?) brother's passworded user account, yet it was another younger (?) brother that had to 'backdoor' without a password? Are they the same brother or is what I said correct? It's obviously another user account using the drive space, so my question is are you SURE the user account has been deleted? Why wouldn't the brother that gave you laptop delete his account and why was a 'backdoor' needed? Sounds as if the user account was not properly removed and is indeed still there. I have no advice other than to get the brother whose laptop it was to try and remove his account. Let us know how this works out? :confused I've never really messed with multiple accounts on a single computer, but I do know that options to NOT install programs for (or share files with) all users are available and would explain the <unknown> space usage.

 

that is exactly the problem. my younger brother cleared all the accounts and made new ones because he didnt know the password and for reasons unknown didnt want to wait and ask for them. so now there is an user account that is taking up a great deal of space that I cant reach at all. I tried making an account with my older bros account name and it came u with his picture and seemed like it woul work but there was nothing to be found.

 

at this point I would like to know if there is some way to either bring a deleted account back, or clear this account entirely.

 

would anybody be able to help me with this. I don't have the disk for a system restore. I just would like some help, if possible to remove this account that is taking up so much space on the hard drive.

 

Try one of these and see if you can access the hidden account by finding the password ...................

http://www.softpedia.com/downloadTag/password+retriever

 

Being that you have XP Home Edition, the built in Administrator account is only available when booting in Safe Mode, and the password is blank by default unless someone set one. Have you tried this yet?

In the event that you have and there is a password set on the Administrator account, then I would recommend trying this, http://home.eunet.no/pnordahl/ntpasswd/bootdisk.html. There are instructions for making either a bootable CD or floppy disk. I've only used this on XP Pro, but it will blank the password on any user account on the computer that it sees, and that you select for the blanking.

Hopefully this will help!