Hello, I'm a first-time poster and nearly computer illiterate-- but I'm learning.
I am using a Windows XP Pro on a Dell Inspiron 5100. My laptop is running pretty slow--especially on start-up, but more importantly, I have very little free disk space. I keep getting a little pop-up telling me I have X amount (under 200MB) of free disk space. So, I run disk clean-up, which helps a little. I finally decided it's time to try to run the disk defragmenter (it's been a long time since I have), but I need to free up 15% of my hard drive to run it.
I've deleted all the programs I'm comfortable deleting, I've deleted temporary files, lowered the percentage of space used for system restore, lowered the percentage of space used for temporary files, and I still only have 1% of free space. I've try to do some research, but everyone just says to run the defrag tool to free up space, no one says what to do if you can't run the tool.
Somewhere on this site, I found some free defrag downloads, but they haven't worked. For instance, DefragNT. I waited for 40 minutes while it analyzed disk C, and when it finished, it mysteriously closed. I waited another 40 minutes while it analyzed again, and then it froze after I tried to start defragmenting. I tried two different things from "Uniblue"; one was called "Registry Booster", and I can't remember the other one. They just "analyzed" also.
There is another issue which may be affecting my free space, I'm not sure. When I start up, there are two versions of Windows and I am given 25 seconds to choose one. Only the first one works. I am told this is a "partition" issue...I only sort of understand what this means...but, I read somewhere that this might be taking up space. I can't remember where, but I found instructions for deleting the unused partition-- but they didn't work. There was a button that should have been highlighted but wasn't, so I couldn't complete the task.
Sorry for the book I've written here, I hope you can help.
Thanks.:up:
I am using a Windows XP Pro on a Dell Inspiron 5100. My laptop is running pretty slow--especially on start-up, but more importantly, I have very little free disk space. I keep getting a little pop-up telling me I have X amount (under 200MB) of free disk space. So, I run disk clean-up, which helps a little. I finally decided it's time to try to run the disk defragmenter (it's been a long time since I have), but I need to free up 15% of my hard drive to run it.
I've deleted all the programs I'm comfortable deleting, I've deleted temporary files, lowered the percentage of space used for system restore, lowered the percentage of space used for temporary files, and I still only have 1% of free space. I've try to do some research, but everyone just says to run the defrag tool to free up space, no one says what to do if you can't run the tool.
Somewhere on this site, I found some free defrag downloads, but they haven't worked. For instance, DefragNT. I waited for 40 minutes while it analyzed disk C, and when it finished, it mysteriously closed. I waited another 40 minutes while it analyzed again, and then it froze after I tried to start defragmenting. I tried two different things from "Uniblue"; one was called "Registry Booster", and I can't remember the other one. They just "analyzed" also.
There is another issue which may be affecting my free space, I'm not sure. When I start up, there are two versions of Windows and I am given 25 seconds to choose one. Only the first one works. I am told this is a "partition" issue...I only sort of understand what this means...but, I read somewhere that this might be taking up space. I can't remember where, but I found instructions for deleting the unused partition-- but they didn't work. There was a button that should have been highlighted but wasn't, so I couldn't complete the task.
Sorry for the book I've written here, I hope you can help.
Thanks.:up: