Petrus Hishilenapo asks:
Somebody help me please! I have Windows XP installed, but the free space is less than it is supposed to be.
The total space is 20 GB and the free space is 8GB, but the actual used up space including programs is only about 6 GB. How can I recover the other 6 GB?
I tried uninstalling the programs, Windows XP itself, but nothing happened. I did disk defragging, but still showing the same results
Browser: Opera 11.62
System: Windows xp
Tagged: disk space, free space, internal drive, windows tips, windows xp
System: Windows xp
Tagged: disk space, free space, internal drive, windows tips, windows xp
9 Answers -
ha14
June 16, 2012perhaps the space of restore point is causinh this
to reduce System Restore use less disk space.
Go to Start>> Control Panel
Double click the System icon
Click the System Restore tab
If you have a single partition, click the Settings button and reduce the disk space allocation by sliding the bar to the left. If you have multiple partitions, select the partition and then click the Settings button. Again, sliding the bar to the left reduces the disk allocation.
When finished, click OK
check also your hidden folders
1.Open Folder Options in Control Panel.
• Click Start, and then click Control Panel.
• Click Appearance and Themes, and then click Folder Options.
2. On the View tab, under Hidden files and folders, click Show hidden files and folders.
try to clean windows xp with ccleaner, glary utilities…
Dalsan
June 16, 2012Another reason there may be hidden space taken up is the Windows Updates and uninstaller information. Restore points and updates that you install are left on the hard drive and take up a lot of space. http://windowssecrets.com/langalist-plus/delete-leftover-update-patch-files/
This will help you out.
guthagowtham
June 16, 2012Use CCleaner drive wiper and clean with very complex overwrite on the drive
ecd4a4d35dce1b96560e85a8ce64f578
June 16, 2012I would recommend that you install and run bleachbit.
http://bleachbit.sourceforge.net/
I’ve used it to free up a lot of space on my computer.
Kannon Y
June 16, 2012My favorite method of Windows optimization is using Windirstat to display a visual representation of a hard drive. Many of the huge files that Windirstat shows are essential to the proper function of your computer. A few of these system critical files, however, can be resized to something more manageable.
Windirstate reveals two sometimes oversized space wasters: (1) the page file and (2) the hibernate file. If your system has a lot of RAM installed – approximately 2GB (or more) on an XP system, the hibernate and page files can get unusually large.
Regarding the page file, I’ve been told that XP doesn’t need a page file larger than 1 GB (although other sources argue that it should be as large as the system needs). Windows sets a default of 1.5 times the amount of RAM in the system – but this seems a little high in computers with lots of RAM but tiny hard drive space. My own experiences tell me that a 2GB page file is large enough for normal use. There’s a commentator, Bruce Eppers, who has a much better understanding of this subject than I. Hopefully he chimes in at some point.
Anyway, the hibernate file should be approximately equal to the amount of RAM in your system – this is because when a computer hibernates, it saves everything in active memory to the hard disk – it restores this file to memory upon exiting hibernate mode. You can disable hibernate (which you don’t want on a system with a tiny hard drive) through <a href="http://www.tech-recipes.com/rx/1386/xp-disable-or-enable-hibernation/"these directions.
FIDELIS
June 16, 2012Hello, I would say your system is working as it should. Is your harddrive a 20 GB? You have to consider that if the harddrive is 20GB, it does not mean that all of it is usable. Some of if is lost due to the extension used in formatting such as NTFS or FAT and the cluster size.
Like others have said, page file is one of the reasons why the space disappears. For XP and operating system before it, it was recommended with a page file of 1.5 the amount of memory. What version of XP are you runing? How much memory do you have installed? If you want to check your pagefile do the following:
– press the windows key + Pause/Break
– click on advanced tab
– under Performance heading, click on Settings
– click on advanced tab
– check under virtual memory heading for amount of page file listed. You can also change it there.
Also keep in mind that if you delete files from your system, they go to recycle bin. You can also change the amount of space for recycle bin so that there is more space available.
– right click on recyble bin icon
– click on properties
– move the slider left to reduce or right to increase space
You can also change the size reserved for restore points:
– click on windows key + pause/break key at same time
– click on system restore tab
– move the slider left to reduce space used by system restore
You can also use software like the following to check where the space is being used and what the files causing it are located:
http://www.jam-software.com/freeware/
Gregory Fretti
June 17, 2012Use CCleaner
http://www.piriform.com/CCLEANER
It is a nice piece of software that can help you clean up your drive.
Bruce Epper
June 17, 2012First of all, you are not missing 6GB of space – it is only about 4.4GB. This is due to the differences in size reporting. The hardware manufacturers report the size of a drive using base 10 math where 1GB = 1,000,000,000 bytes. Computers report these sizes using base 2 math (it is faster to perfom as a series of bit-shift operations) so to them 1GB = 1,073,741,824 bytes. So a drive that is sold as 20GB is in reality closer to 18.6GB (20,000,000,000/1,073,741,824) as reported by your computer.
The restore points on your computer are the most likely culprit of this “missing space” as they are not counted in the tally of file sizes that the system reports. If your computer is working properly, it is generally considered safe to remove all but the latest restore point. This can be done using CCleaner (and similar tools) or by using the Windows-provided Disk Cleanup. You need to access the advanced options in Disk Cleanup to be able to do this and many people don’t even realize the option is there.
The used space on your drive is counting the size of pagefile.sys, hiberfil.sys, the Recycle Bin contents, and any backed up files from update installations. None of these would account for any kind of “missing space” as they are included in the tally of used space on the drive.
Kannon: In order for hibernation to work, the hibernation file must be slightly larger than installed RAM. In order to generate a full memory pagedump due to a system crash, the pagefile.sys must be slightly larger than installed RAM. If there is no testing being done on the machine or only a kernel dump is required, the pagefile can easily be reduced to less than installed memory provided there is sufficient RAM.
Sri Swaminathan Vanarasi
June 17, 2012yes i would definitely recommend cc cleaner