Trying to free up Storage Space in Windows Vista

Hi There,
I am trying to free up some disc space and sort out problems on a friends laptop. It is fairly old and running Vista. When I got it the Drive was partitioned into C & D equally, approx 32GB each. The C Drive has all the Windows/Program files etc.. The D drive has all the Data files. The C drive had no space at all when I first looked at it, it wouldn't even run Photoshop because of lack of Disk Space. Windows Update had never been run, nor had system restore, which was turned off. I looked at the files on C and managed to delete some unnecessary files, Then I ran a series of scans for mal/virus etc.. I used the recommended sequence in the newbie section. I couldn't get MG Tools to run but the others ran fine. There were a couple of Trogans and some minor malware, all cleaned. I installed a million updates!! The problem is that I ran WinDirStat and I'm not sure if the results are normal, I was hoping someone could look at them and tell me if I can cut the size of the windows directory down, it is 24GB at the moment and with other installed software is maxing out the partition. It says jpegs are takng up 17.3 GB, maybe I'm reading it wrong. Is this right? When I do a search for jpegs on the C drive they only seem to take up a few hundred MB. I need to free up a reasonable amount of space to allow for future updates etc..
Hope you can help!
Thanks a lot

 

I think the jpegs are probably on the data drive. It looks like it is showing both partitions along the bottom with the purple one being D:

Sadly, a couple year old Vista installation will use close to 30gb. Take a look at C:\Windows\winsxs and get its size. That folder holds all the old updates and generally is the one that takes up the most space. It is recommended to leave it alone but there are ways to slim it down a bit. But even aggressive pruning will only yield a few GB. Again, it is not recommended.

One workaround might be to use a partition program to take some space from D: and give it to C: it depends on how much free space is left on D: whether that would help.

 

CCleaner is a great tool to help you get rid of unnecessary junk.

 

Thanks for the replies, I have used CCleaner and it did give me a bit of space but it was quickly filled up with all the updates Vista needed. Do I use Disk Managment for this? Decrease the size of D? Will this automatically increase C or do I need to then increase C?? Sorry, I have not messed about with partitions for years, very rusty!!!

 

You can get a lot more info about what is taking up space by installing Everything. Searching for .jpg will list them all and where they are, though as gvstn has said, most of them are probably on the data partition. It is also true what he said about Vista - we have a five year old Vista system here also with system and data partitions and Vista is taking up 35GB despite regular cleaning and maintenance.

Vista's disk management will shrink the data partition for you but you also need to tell it to expand C into the vacated space.

 

Is a new hard drive an option? Here's a good deal on a 320GB drive: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136280

 

You will get a clearer picture with WinDirStat if you select individual drives. I've only just realised that the pic you posted was with the All Local Drives option. However you still face resizing the partitions I believe, though that is very straightforward.

 

Thanks Guys,
I realised that The disks weren't separated after Gvstn pointed it out earlier and I couldn't get windows disk managment to play ball, it just said I did not have permission to shrink D. I installed a 3rd party tool and sucessfully repartitioned the drive. Hurrah! :-D
We now have a good amount of space on the C Drive and I'm dropping off the machine tomorrow!
Thanks again guys!

 

Good work!

I'm glad you figured out the partitioning. Thanks for letting us know how it worked out.