Disk Cleanup and defragment, etc.?

Question

hey, so, my laptop was running really slow, and it poped up saying i had low disk space, so i ran disk cleanup, and that said it resolved the issue of low space for the meantime.

i then thought, wharl im at it, i will do a disk defragmenter!

so i did, and it came up as;

http://i36.tinypic.com/10fe6af.jpg

is the bar at the bottom as it should be?

and, is 6% free average? i really dont know, but it sounds like its low to me!!

i have deleted lots of videos and pictures, and really cant delete anymore

is it ok? am i fretting over nothing? help :)

oh, and timewise, how long does defrag take? x

*only i use the laptop,

and, i have deleted programmes i dont use also.

Answer 1

Honestley, 6% free is a serious state. I generally have mine at around 70%. You really need to clear that laptop up a bit more. Normally Disk Defragmenter won't work unless you have 15% free space at least, so you need to get that much at least. to speed up your computer and free up space and memory for free:

Go to the Start Menu> Run

Type in "appwiz.cpl"

Uninstall whatever you don't need.

Next, go to Start> Run and type in "msconfig".

Go to the Startup Tab and uncheck everything you don't want to startup. If you want, you can uncheck everything, and your anti-virus will still restart itself when you log on.

Now go to My Computer> Hard Drive> Documents and Settings> [USER NAME]> Local Settings> and delete everything inside the Temp Folder. (This is a hidden folder so you will need to have "show hidden files and folders" checked in Folder Options) All the files in this folder are just temporary files that your Internet stored for certain websites.

Next, you should install CCleaner; it will get rid of alot of temporary files on your computer. It also has a registry repair system, which is easily the best free one available on the Internet:

http://www.ccleaner.com/download

Another thing I would say is to compress your files if you already haven't.

Open My Computer and right click on your hard drive

Check the Compress Drive button and let it do its thing.

Also, while you're in Disk Cleaner, make sure that you delete teh System Restore backups, as they take up 5/6 GB of space aswell. It's on the second tab when the disk cleaner option pops up.

Finally, make sure your Hard Drive doesn't have any bad sectors. Go to My Computer> Right Click Hard Drive> Properties> Tools Tab> Check Now> Check both boxes and Start. It will ask you to reboot, so reboot. This will clear out any bad sectors on your Hard Drive.

Good Luck =]

Answer 2

panic ye not.

after reading this i suggest you stop the de-frag for the present.

you say you have deleted a lot.

have you more than 1 photo program on your PC.

have you windows media player and any other players.

if any above are yes.

photo programs have a tendency to each keep a copy of each photo.

you have. also in my documents pictures there is a copy .

check each program +my documents ~delete the unwanted ones +any duplicates.

the same with music ~check each "player" in the library +also check in their video/film and picture library's +music file in my documents

now hope fully you have some memory back.

at this stage ~download "ccleaner"(yes 2 c's) it's a free program.

run it (then run at least weekly it is quite a quick program)

it clears all the temp files and browser cookies you collect while browsing which helps speed things up .it will give you some memory back also.

then i suggest you download "jkdefragGUI".

the best de-frag program i have found ~it's free.

run it over night with no other programs running the first time you use it.it may take 2/3 hours(it will be much faster any other time you use it (at least monthly)

this will also gain you some memory back and improve comp speed.

by this time you should hope fully have found quite a lot of memory.

i know this will help.

all the best.

Answer 3

Hi,

That is a heavily fragmented drive! Please look at the defrag analysis  report to identify the most fragmented files.

You should run a disk cleanup to free up as much space as possible.This can be done by right clicking the drive in 'My Computer', and selecting Disk Cleanup from the Properties tab.

You can defragment that drive even in low space conditions (yours is ~6%) using Diskeeper 2008. Please download and install the free 30-day trial version of Diskeeper 2008 pro from http://www.diskeeper.com and enable automatic defragmentation on the drive. Give it a few hours (maybe more) and it should defragment those files. A boot-time defragmentation might be necessary after the automatic defrag run, to completely defrag the MFT and page file.

Hope this helps.

Best regards

---------------------------------

Representative

Diskeeper Corporation

---------------------------------

Answer 4

As everyone else has said ccleaner is great,depending on the size of your hdd a defrag (complete) can run to 1/2 an hour with an 80Gb hdd.I don't have a laptop but these should work just as well, they're lite and do a pretty good job.

iobit smart defrag

iobit advanced windows care personal

The smart defrag will run in the background constantly keeping your files organised.(Perhaps not a great idea for laptops ,but just in case someone else needed to know).

The advanced windows care personal does spy ware and  privacy cleaning (i.e surfing history,cookies,etc...).It also checks for bottlenecks in your system via the optimisation tool.

all free here:

http://www.iobit.com/iobitsmartdefrag.ht...

http://www.iobit.com/advancedwindowscare...

Answer 5

Well, the bar is supposed to look all blue and pushed to the left side, so it is really fragmented.  6% is really low.  You should defragment it just to get the best out of the computer!

Answer 6

Run the Defrag tool, that pic looks pretty ugly.

Another free Defrag tool is: http://www.auslogics.com/disk-defrag/ind...

You can also get an app called CCleaner that will delete temps files and lots of garbage for you.  http://www.ccleaner.com/

You will want to look at the options of this app and select which cookies you want to save if you don't want to retype your passwords.