Why Is My Hard Drive Space All Gone? I have hardly anything installed!

I downloaded the application "TreeSize" to help me figure out WHY I have no room on this teeny tiny little netbook (besides the obvious reason ..it's a NETBOOK.. LoL) but it's not helping me find a solution to fixing that problem. I have included a "print screen" shot of what the "treesize" application showed me but I still don't understand how to make it better. Is it really normal to have LESS than gig a on a netbook after the OS (windows xp) is installed?

I also included a shot of my "add/remove programs" list.

Any suggestions would be so welcome right now. I don't know enough about this stuff to feel secure in deleting just anything that is taking up space. But I know I don't need all the extra bells and whistles that windows xp likes to load with.

It would be nice to have at least a gig or TWO of room left.

Do you think it's possible?

I believe it's originally a 7.5 drive but "TreeSize" is listing it as "6.4" which makes no sense either. And I haven't added anything much to this thing since I got it. So I can't understand what's eating up so much room.

Anyway, thanks for listening and if you have suggestions ..trust me... I could use them.

Have a great weekend!!

 

First of all ...thank you for your wonderful information and helpful suggestions. Your instructions were very easy to follow. Thank you

I'm sad to hear that this drive is too small for the OS tho. Why did they load it with it then? What's the actual point of it all then? I don't know much about this particular netbook. A co worker said he would sell it to me for $50 bux but the OS (windows xp) was messed up on it. So I reformatted the drive and put a new copy of windows xp on it and it worked great. And I sadly thought I got a good deal. But there's no ROOM for anything. I used to always be able to keep almost 2 gigs free after all the installs were done. And everything was fine. But then out of nowhere I suddenly lost almost over a gig of room. If I am not mistaken ... I don't even think I have a full gig right now. Which makes no sense to me cuz it was there before and I didn't download or install anything new.

The netbook is an Acer Aspire One Series model GZ5

and I've attached the report you requested

 

I'm no expert with saving space using OS tweaks, but could it be that you have temp files taking up room? If so, CCleaner is a great tool for removing temp files that build up. Modifying your page file to a smaller size would help, but if you make it too small, it will affect the machine's performance as well.

I'm assuming you don't have Hibernate enabled (as I didn't see a hibernation file)... that definitely takes more space.

Another thing I can think of is that Windows Updates take up space, so as time goes on Windows will need more room. You can also use CCleaner (under Tools - System Restore) to remove all except the most recent Restore Point. Those tend to take up quite a bit of room.

 

Aaahh, you reloaded XP. You most likely created a windows.old file as XP takes less than 2 GB IIRC. Easiest thing to do is to make sure that you format the drive first then reload XP. To confirm my guess, unhide Windows and protected files in Control panel and run treesize again. BTW, did you install any service packs?.

 

You also have a 1.5gb pagefile. If you have enough RAM, you could reduce that to perhaps 512mb or 768mb.

And as mcsmc said, the Windows Update file will take up a lot of space.

The missing space on the HDD could also be a service or restore partition that you may not need if you have a CD for reinstalling XP.

 

I forgot to mention that you also have Google Chrome installed. It starts out small but stores a lot of junk on the HDD over time. You can see in your Programs list that it is something over 150mb while Firefox is only about 20-30mb. That's not as significant as the other things listed by everyone but it all adds up.

 

Thanks for the suggestions... CCleaner is under Accessories and then under System Tools and then as Disk Cleaner. Correct? I'm not very educated with this sort of stuff but I'm a faster learner

If that is what you meant for me to do ... then I did those above steps that I just outlined and it helped a little. Thank you

As far as "Page Files" go ... I have no clue where to begin to change that and to even *what* I should change it to. LoL I don't even know what they are. LoL!

And hibernating is another thing I am not clear on. I believe it is indeed turned off right now. Is that good or bad?

I would love to eliminate all the extra stuff and settings that I don't need. Freeing up as much room as possible without slowing down the computer. It's slow enough. LoL! I know windows will update and add to this but is there a way to delete previous updates or does the computer require them all to work together?

Anyway, thanks to ALL of you for being patient with me and spending the time to help me figure it out. I truly appreciate it. Sadly, for now, this netbook is my only form of a computer as well as any internet connection I may have ...so I would like it to work the best it can. Even though it's so small. I still don't even understand WHY they would make one so small to begin with. But then again I don't know exactly understand all the whys and whats of computers. LoLs

I am just grateful I have this netbook at all. Otherwise I would have nothing.

 

Oh I most definitely totally reformatted the entire drive AND re-partitioned it before I put the new OS on it.

 

I would run CCleaner and delete all temp files as mcsmc suggested. Turn off system restore if you have not done so yet. For that small of a drive it probably is not useful.

If you have no problem with the hotfix updates, you can uninstall them with this utility.

http://www.dougknox.com/xp/utils/xp_hotfix_backup.htm

Note: This is an early Acer netbook that uses an 8GB SSD. Adding a hard drive requires a total disassemble of the computer.

http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Installing-Acer-Aspire-One-ZG5-Hard-Drive/3784/1

http://tnkgrl.wordpress.com/2008/08/16/modding-the-acer-aspire-one-hard-drive/

Edit: Looks like I missed a couple of posts. :-D

 

ooops I guess there were a few more posts being made while I was writing my last reply so I need a few minutes to read everything you guys wrote and figure out what I should do next. There were quite a few suggestions and some of them are confusing. Where should I start first? And I will go from there.

 

There is only one drive

 

Reducing the pagefile may slow the computer if you don't have enough RAM. Do you know how much RAM you have?

Click on System in Control Panel and it should display the processor speed and RAM.

 

I deleted all the previous system restore points... but the last one. Is there a way to turn it off completely?

I have no problem deleting hotfix updates but I don't know what they are or where to find them to delete them.

I ran the disk cleaner that came with the computer in the accessories section under system tools. All cleaned out now.

How do I change the page files?

And I will uninstall chrome for sure after I finish figuring all this out. Thank you for pointing that out to me. It's HUGE compared to firefox. WoW!

You all have been very AMAZING!! Thank you for being so patient with me. And so very incredibly helpful.

 

this is what it says:

CPU N270 @ 1.60GHz
1.60 GHz, 0.98 GB of RAM

 

What are hotfix? Cuz if I don't need them I have no problem getting rid of them.

And I have no intention of adding a hard drive to this computer. I am only hoping that this one will get me through the next 3 or 4 months until I can buy a desktop. Gotta save that money up first. Ya know how it is.

But THANK YOU for the helpful instructions. :dood

 

I don't think I've installed any service packs but I can't remember. I'm sorry.

How do I unhide windows in control panel? Under which icon is that setting?

 

It looks to me like you would be able to drop your pagefile to something under a gig without sacrificing much in the way of performance.

To adjust it manually, go to System in Control Panel. Click the Advanced tab. Go to Performance and click settings. Again, click the Advanced tab. Click Change under Virtual Memory. Click the Custom Size radio button. I would make the Initial size 512mb and the Maximum size 1024mb.

 

WOWOWOWOW!!!

You guys yet AGAIN and without any doubt ...TOTALLY ROCK!!! :celebrate

This is my lastest treesize scan after doing all the things you've all suggested and it worked ALOT!!

THANK YOU!! THANK YOU!! THANK YOU!!

I didn't reduce the page file setting yet though.

Should I still do that? How much space do you think it'll free up?

Here's the latest scan attached

 

The disk cleaning utility Windows has is alright, but CCleaner is a free program that is much more useful and easier to use. Don't use the Registry tool, and don't change any of the settings except unchecking "cookies" in the browser(s) you use (it's a pain to start over with website settings every time you run the cleaner, and cookies take hardly any space)
under the Applications tab in the normal Cleaner section.

CCleaner is available for download here:

http://majorgeeks.com/CCleaner_Slim_d4191.html

Your page file is currently 1.5GB, if you set it to minimum 512MB and maximum 1024MB, you will save at least another half a gigabyte of space.