file analysis software

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I suspect that I have an NTFS file problem, but cannot find the answer. My free space on my C Drive has suddenly disappeared.

I run Belarc Advisor and it shows that I have a c drive of 116.59GB with 2.25GB free.
I run the utility Tree Size and it shows C drive of 10,052MB with free space of 313MB
I run the utility File Menu and it shows 9.82 GB used on the C drive
I run Karen’s Directory Print and it shows 10,565,638,690 Bytes used on the C drive

I realize that each of these tools uses different approaches to finding used bytes, so I am not worried that there are minor differences in bytes used. I may be misinterpreting the terminology of GB and MB – I am using 1,000 MB to = 1 GB and I cannot account for the vast difference between Belarc Advisor and the other tools.

I would like some ideas on how to account for used space on the Cdrive – without resorting to getting out the programming books.

Windows and Program Files appear to be the largest files.

I added a page file to my D drive partition and tried to reduce the size of the page file on the C drive, but with everything else going on, I may have messed that up. What seems to be the minimum acceptable page file on the C Drive?

Another set of eyes looking at these numbers will be appreciated, as well as any other utilities that I should try.

Tom

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1.) Do you have the latest version of Belarc Advisor – Free Personal PC Audit installed?
2.) What does Windows Explorer tell you?
3.) What operating system are you running?

Joe

--Joe

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Yes I have latest Belarc Advisor.
I am running XP with all fixes applied.
When I show C Drive using Windows explorer – I don’t see any indication of sizes. Is there another technique I am missing?

Tom

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Right click the drive and select Properties.

Joe

--Joe

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I found the C Drive data on explorer:
It shows C total 108 GB
with 509 MB available

Tom

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I have been very selective about which program files / folders I mark for compression. Should I just compress all of the program files folder?

Tom

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I think I found the problem – User Error
Pretty sure I have been reading data incorrectly

I attached a word doc showing win explorer, Belarc, and Treesize reports

Not sure how to nterpret the GB / MB differences

Tom

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I’d not worry about the differences. They are probably because different programs often use different citeria such as actual space vs allocated space or the difference between decimal & binary values for MB – see Megabyte – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

You need to free up some space on C: or you’ll start having problems. Do you clean up temporary files regularly? What is your Temporary Internet Files size setting? Do you have System Restore “ON” for C:? If so, what is the size? Have you carefully examined your installed programs and uninstalled any you don’t use?

Joe

--Joe

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I agree that I need to clear out some space. I am attempting to do that.

I can’t figure out how I got this much stuff on my system. I have an offline hard drive that I have moved just about everything to.

I have a single PC and do not do any development, do not (to my knowledge) use net meeting, frontpage, etc. Any thoughts on stuff I can cull out of Windows XP would be appreciated.

Thanks

Tom

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I’d start with the stuff I mentioned in post 754,236. It is unlikely you’ll get rid of much by tinkering with XP.

Joe

--Joe

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Take a look under C:Windows. You probably have a lot of folders that begin with $NTUninstall. Those folders contain the files necessary to uninstall Microsoft patches. If you system is running well and you don’t think you’ll need to uninstall any currently installed patch then you can delete all of these folders. Also, in C:Windows are the log files for the patches. These files begin with KB and can be deleted too.

NOTE: Be VERY careful NOT to delete the $hf_mig$ folder or its contents.

Joe

--Joe

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Thanks to all – I got rid of a lot of stuff and now have approx 970MB free

om

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You can also try something like CCleaner – Home. Carefully review what it is proposing to do before allowing it to proceed. Particularly for the first time or two you may want to do a system backup before using it.

Joe

--Joe

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Joe, dumb question but I’m being cautious: if I move the Windows patch “$NTUninstall*…” folders to an external drive, if I need to can I later move them back and have them function as expected?

Also, should the “$NtServicePackUninstall*…” folders be left in place, or can the older ones be deleted or moved to backup?

(I’m also looking to free up some space.)

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John,

Never tried moving those folders. I suppose you could move a folder back and have it work if you needed it. It is just a compressed folder. The service pack uninstall folder is no different from any other of the “Uninstall” folders AFAIK. I’m usually pretty aggresive about getting rid of old “Uninstall” folders when I install a new service pack. After a couple of days of use I clean up whatever I can. With Windows I normally have a slipstreamed install disk. So, I’ll be installing to the last service pack anyway.

Joe

--Joe

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I regularly delete the Windows uninstall files after the patches have been running a few weeks.

I’ve never had to back out a patch. It’s rare that user would know what patch to back out or that there wouldn’t be issues in doing so.

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>> What seems to be the minimum acceptable page file on the C Drive?

With XP, I have a paging file on Drive D: only, I’m not sure it’s necessary on your C: (Boot) drive.

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If you don’t have a pagefile on the system drive Windows will be unable to capture a dump if there is a crash.

Joe

--Joe

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“If you don’t have a pagefile on the system drive Windows will be unable to capture a dump if there is a crash.

Joe ”

You can make a secondary page file on the C: drive say 10MB in size to overcome this issue.

Although frankly, I’m not sure what a normal user would do with a crash dump anyway.

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Actually, a small pagefile as you suggest allows you to capture a mini-dump only which may not contain enough information to diagnose the problem. However, I do agree that a normal user would not know what to do with a dump file. The automatic crash reporting tools with the newer Windows versions do capture information from dump files.

Joe

--Joe

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