Clean Up Your Hard Drive

By: Vladimir Petrov

The reasons why we would want to do this is the fuller your hard drive becomes the harder it has to work. We are not really cleaning up the hard drive, we are freeing up space.Let me show you what i mean:



Tip 1 With Windows XP, open My Computer and then single click C:drive (local disk), the detail box will show how much free space you have available.



Warning: Before uninstalling anything, be sure you no longer want it, if you think later on you may (games are a good example) just make sure you still have the original disk. If you are not sure what you are deleting then best to leave it alone, you may get warnings that part of the program you are trying to uninstall may be used by other programs so again best to leave it alone.



Tip 2 Deleting an icon off your desktop does not remove the programme / software from your Hard Drive.



Some programs you have installed and no longer use may have come with their own uninstall option. To see, click Start > All Programs place cursor over the program you want and look for uninstall, then click. If you see a something with out the uninstall options just make a note, as you may find them in the next step.



This is the most common and safest way to remove programs, Start > Control Panel > Add or Remove programs, once the window has loaded you will be able to see most of what you have installed on your computer. Just click on the program you no longer require and hit the Change/Remove tab.



Tip 3 Items in the recycle bin are still stored on the hard drive until emptied.



If you are considering deleting music and photos, you may want to save them first to either DVD or USB drive. Although photos (depends on image size) and music (mostly mp3) do not use up a lot of space you can leave them for now.



However, all movie type files do use up a lot of space, a full length movie in mp4 format could be up to as much as one GB. If, in the pass you have downloaded, burnt or copied movies using your PC chances are, there are some hidden files on your hard drive (if you have teenagers, chances are greater). Rather than spending hours checking folders and locations there is an easy way, Start > Search when the window opens up click on Pictures, Music or Video tick Video then Search - this will then show all movie type files and their locations.



Tip 4 Using a registry cleaner will find and delete from your hard drive all those useless left over registry keys (some of which can be rather large).



Running your disk cleanup will help clean out your temporary folder but most defiantly last thing you should do is a Disk Defragmenter. Now we reboot and check your C:drive (local disk) to see how much free space now available.