Low on hard drive space - weird

[mutthead21]

OK I've got my primary hd partitioned into C: and D; - it's a 60G drive and C: is 5G for windows only. I have all of my other programs and "my Docs" on the D: yet I'm running out of disk space?? Wtf is happening? I've done some digging around and run adaware and I'm still sitting here with 169Mgs free! My windows folder is sitting at 3.31G and that seems enormously high.
Anyone got any tips? I've tried all the blatently obvious.

edit: aha! I found the service pack files - a cool 500mg, can I delete them though? Also found SoftwareDistribution at another 590mg. Must delete, but not sure if I can...

thx

[TwiztedFait]

Where is your pagefile located??

[mutthead21]

on another totally separate hd. C: drive is set to "no Page File"

[KodiakStar]

Check for Temp folders or internet explorer cache's
they sometimes tend to horde alot of usless garbage,
even if you clear out using the tools ->delete all files
in your web browser

[Direwolf20]

Is system restore on?

[mutthead21]

system restore is down to the minimum on C: am doing some diggin as we type, and found a 230 meg Outlook file, gonna see about moving that one, but really the issue seems to be this 1G of stuff in my Windows folder in the servicepackfiles and softewaredistribution folders. Not sure if I should delete them though.

O and my temp files for ie are on another hard drive "e" so there not even there on the C.

Madness.....

[KodiakStar]

Sometimes windows hides a Temp folder in the *:\Windows\Temp
Also look for .log files sometimes those eat up space (10k at a time
but that adds up)

then i always delete all those .bmp images that come with a fresh
install too, its not much, but I hate a bunch of un-needed files laying
around. much harder to stay on top of since 3.11 though :p

[arkamw]

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that those two directories are free to be moved to a different location, if not deleted entirely.

Browsing through them, it would appear that "sevicepackfiles" is just as it describes, SP1 or SP2 files that were unzipped when the update was performed. "Softwaredistribution" appears to be the files that are downloaded when you do updates off the MS website through auto-update.

If you want to be on the safe side, move those two directories to a safe place on your bigger drive and see what happens. You should be ok.

And maybe, next time, set 10GB for your main drive??

[Impact9]

5 gig is realllly tiny even for a super clean well maintained system. I figure 20 gig is about right. Oh just look at my c: and I got a meer 1.2 g/20g left and I got about 650G of space partioned out.

Oh also go into the windows add and remove programs and uninstall all the junk you don't use like msn explorer and then go into the program files and delete their folders. Reduce the size of your recycle bin as well.

[mutthead21]

thx guys, gonna try to move the files and see what happens...

managed to move the servicepackfiles but it won't let me delete the softwaredistribution folder. won't let me delete reportingeventslog. Being used by another program. I think it's time for a little partitionmagic!!

Mutt

[Elledan]

5 gig is realllly tiny even for a super clean well maintained system. I figure 20 gig is about right. Oh just look at my c: and I got a meer 1.2 g/20g left and I got about 650G of space partioned out.
I've got Win2k installed on a 1 GB partition :)

[Direwolf20]

Go get www.ccleaner.com

Awesome program :) I ran it for the first time last night and it cleaned off 1 gig of unneeded files.

[darktiger]

5gigs is kind of small for your windows drive...I would of set it to 20gb...Everytime you install software, even if you point it to a different drive, it sticks crap in your windows folder......Then there is the web surfing part, it sticks that on C drive.....

[feigned]

I've got Win2k installed on a 1 GB partition :)

Now that is madness, but more doable than XP by a long shot.

[Elledan]

Now that is madness, but more doable than XP by a long shot.
Originally I had Win98 installed on this HDD, for which 1 GB was overkill. Win2k is happy with it, as I've moved all /temp and similar directories to other partitions.