I just noticed yesterday that the hard drive on the laptop I bought about a year ago is 90% full. It’s a ThinkPad and it says I only have one drive, which has just 25GB free out of 143GB (ie., 118GB full).
I’m no techie, so I didn’t quite grasp the significance of that till I checked my work computer, that I’ve used for the past 5 years and that has just 39GB full.
WTF? I don’t download tons of music, videos and movies. In fact I’ve almost never done that, I had fewer than 10 movies on it and I just deleted all of them and as much other crap as I could find and it didn’t make a dent. Still 90% full.
Is it possible some malware deposited 100GB of crap on my computer?
If not, what on earth could be taking up so much space, how can I find it and get rid of it?
I also checked programs on the computer and none of them appear to be massive.
Thanks for your suggestions. The machine runs ridiculously slow, so now I know the reason and hope to fix it.
Its quite possible your computer has been compromised.
First things first:
DL, install and run - Crap Cleaner. Its free.
Then Dl, install, update and run - RemoveIT Pro. DL the free one. Works magnificently. Just be sure to update with each use - you’ll see the button. If it finds something, and it will, do as it suggests and run it full system.
Start with these to clean your box. Others will probably chime in with solutions to your problem.
Rule #1 of computers in Taiwan: Never let Taiwanese touch yours. Unless you enjoy virus’s, multiple toolbars on your web browser and loads of stupid crap. The only reason my wife’s laptop has lasted this long is because she doesn’t use it. I’m scared to touch the slow decrepit thing. She’s lucky I love her enough to let her use the internet on the same network as me.(She pays the bill so she has leverage )
True. The Taiwanese sites she frequents do seem to harbor more malware – no holds barred in Taiwan when it comes to obnoxious advertising online and off – and she did apologize once when I encountered a Chinese-language popup at my account, which she acknowledged was due to her browsings.
But, in our household it seems that I’m allowed to buy tech devices from time to time, with the understanding that the device is mine and she was generous enough to allow me to purchase it, provided she’s allowed to play around with it on occasion. So far no serious harm has resulted and that’s just part of the price I pay.
1-I’m guessing you’re computer is set to keep temporary files indefinitely. The programs linked by TC should help with that.
2- You should also check the settings on your Media Players. I think Windows Media Player saves any songs and any movies you play by default. This can use up a lot of space on your drive over the period of one year. You need to go into options and uncheck this options.
3- If you use MSN messenger, I believe it also saves all your online chats by default. You need to delete the chat history and uncheck that option in options if you do not wish to save chats.
4-I don’t know about you, but I keep my documents neatly organized in one single folder called “My Documents.” In that folder, I have a bunch of sub folders to organize different types of documents. This includes music, pictures and everything else. All you have to do is right click on the main folder “My documents” and click properties to see how much space is used. If the numbers are huge, search through that folder to what’s using so much storage space.
That’s just a few things I can point out with my very limited knowledge of operating systems.
[quote=“Okami”]You let your wife use your laptop?!?! :ohreally:
Rule #1 of computers in Taiwan: Never let Taiwanese touch yours. Unless you enjoy virus’s, multiple toolbars on your web browser and loads of stupid crap. The only reason my wife’s laptop has lasted this long is because she doesn’t use it. I’m scared to touch the slow decrepit thing. She’s lucky I love her enough to let her use the internet on the same network as me.(She pays the bill so she has leverage )[/quote]
for real dude. don’t forget unauthorized formatting without backing up important documents first.
I would suggest downloading a tool like WinDirStat to find out in a very quick, visual way, what the heck is taking up so much space on your PC. A direct download link is here.
It will take some minutes to scan your hard disk and generate a picture like this:
You can click on any of those blocks you see there, and will see what it is and where on the hard disk it is (which folder/directory). Stuff in one folder/directory will be together, so you will also see those 300.000 pictures as one big area, even though each picture is small.
Stuff I could think of that is taking up lots of space on windows PCs:
Local copies of DVDs
Digital Camera pictures (10+ Megapixels of compact camera noise each)
MP3s, moves and whatever else people share through (illegal?) file sharing
If your PC crashes a lot, lots of crash logs etc.
Games including cashes
email mailboxes (Eeek! my main work one is nearing 10 Gigabytes!)
log files of databases etc., especially if there are unknown/unseen issues
pagefile.sys (windows temporary storage)
hiberfile.sys (same size as your RAM, for hibernation mode aka ACPI S4 sleep state - can be disabled if you don’t need that option)
For GOD’S sake, man! What the hell is wrong with you?
Here’s exactly what to do. Put your computer in a bag. Take it to work on Monday. Give it to Irishstu, along with something that’ll entice him – NT$27 should do it. Next day, pick up your fixed computer at work. Take it home. Unpack it from its bag. Switch it on and return to viewing naked ladies.
Easy as pie.
[quote=“sandman”]For GOD’S sake, man! What the hell is wrong with you?
Here’s exactly what to do. Put your computer in a bag. Take it to work on Monday. Give it to Irishstu, along with something that’ll entice him – NT$27 should do it. Next day, pick up your fixed computer at work. Take it home. Unpack it from its bag. Switch it on and return to viewing naked ladies.
Easy as pie.[/quote]
Last time I did that I got it back and kept getting pop-ups from a gay golfers’ porn site. ("Ooooh, that’s a double bogey. . . ")
Thanks olm. That sounds great. I would definitely like to know what’s taking up the space before trying to remove it.
[quote=“Mother Theresa”][quote=“sandman”]For GOD’S sake, man! What the hell is wrong with you?
Here’s exactly what to do. Put your computer in a bag. Take it to work on Monday. Give it to Irishstu, along with something that’ll entice him – NT$27 should do it. Next day, pick up your fixed computer at work. Take it home. Unpack it from its bag. Switch it on and return to viewing naked ladies.
Easy as pie.[/quote]
Last time I did that I got it back and kept getting pop-ups from a gay golfers’ porn site. ("Ooooh, that’s a double bogey. . . ")
Thanks olm. That sounds great. I would definitely like to know what’s taking up the space before trying to remove it.[/quote]
See that’s where your story falls apart. You’d never find me having ANYTHING to do with golf.
If your unruly tumescence bothers you enough to confess it to a bunch of strangers online, surely the thing to do is simply to stop looking at gay golfer porn?
[quote=“kaikai34”][quote=“Okami”]You let your wife use your laptop?!?! :ohreally:
Rule #1 of computers in Taiwan: Never let Taiwanese touch yours. Unless you enjoy virus’s, multiple toolbars on your web browser and loads of stupid crap. The only reason my wife’s laptop has lasted this long is because she doesn’t use it. I’m scared to touch the slow decrepit thing. She’s lucky I love her enough to let her use the internet on the same network as me.(She pays the bill so she has leverage )[/quote]
for real dude. don’t forget unauthorized formatting without backing up important documents first.[/quote]
Whenever I come back from the US, I find my work computer has had all the settings screwed with, and all sorts of junk on the computer. :fume:
Either that or he could just “man up” and ask jimi out for a back nine. I heard jimi will do just about anything for a chance to use his wee little putter.
[quote=“Okami”]Rule #1 of computers in Taiwan: Never let Taiwanese touch yours. Unless you enjoy virus’s, multiple toolbars on your web browser and loads of stupid crap.[/quote] :roflmao: Yes! Exactly! Therefore, I’ve got my notebook computer, she’s got hers, and for the home I’ve got my desktop and she’s got hers. The only way she could get onto my desktop or my notebook is via the “guest” account and she can’t download or install anything using the guest access! I have to fix her computers constantly, but mine get an annual reformat once a year merely for my own personal SOP.
Regarding your Thinkpad notebook. Did you buy it off the shelf with pre-installed software? If so, a lot of the pre-installed systems you buy off the shelf come with a lot of spyware or adware which could possibly run in the background and download tons of advertising crap, etc. Whenever I buy a new computer, I always remove the harddrive and put in a brand new one or reformat the existing original harddrive and start from scratch installing every single program from the ground up. That way I know exactly what’s on my computer and what’s not.
So, if you decide to put in another harddrive or reformat the current one you have and start from the beginning, you should activate the password menu system so that if your wife wants to use your computer, she has to use the guest account or you could set up her own account and ensure that it has no administrator rights and therefore can’t download or install anything without your permission! Preventive actions!
[quote=“Northcoast Surfer”]Regarding your Thinkpad notebook. Did you buy it off the shelf with pre-installed software? If so, a lot of the pre-installed systems you buy off the shelf come with a lot of spyware or adware which could possibly run in the background and download tons of advertising crap, etc. Whenever I buy a new computer, I always remove the harddrive and put in a brand new one or reformat the existing original harddrive and start from scratch installing every single program from the ground up. That way I know exactly what’s on my computer and what’s not.
So, if you decide to put in another harddrive or reformat the current one you have and start from the beginning, you should activate the password menu system so that if your wife wants to use your computer, she has to use the guest account or you could set up her own account and ensure that it has no administrator rights and therefore can’t download or install anything without your permission! Preventive actions![/quote]
Yes, it did come with OS – Vista, incidentally, which could be part of the problem. But I’m not going to put in another harddrive or reformat or whatever. That sounds like asking me to remove the engine from my car, myself, and reinstall it so it will run smoother. A bit beyond me. But I will, when I get home to my computer, run olm’s program to see what’s taking up all the space, and then try to find that stuff and delete it, then if I succeed defrag it as divea suggested and install the CCleaner as TC suggested and I hope to see at least some improvement. If not I may give it to irishstu with NT$27 and take my chances.
:ohreally:
)
