Where's All Computer memory!?

Question

I have tried everything, system clean up, defrag, deleting, uninstalling, programmes, hidden files, I cannot find what is taking the menory, 100 gigs!!! certainly not temp files or programmes, If as a last resort Re format.... How and would it keep my windows vista operating systen on it?

HELP

Points waiting

Answer 1

There are different kinds of memory - it sounds like your machine does not have enough RAM - Vista really needs one gig of RAM to operate and quite frankly more is more in this case.  Two is better.  I have three in this machine and a quad core processor.  The truth is that upgrading to Vista also means upgrading your hardware too - you could get a 2.4 Quad core with an 8Meg cache and 3Gig of RAm at PC world for £300 if you go to their refurbished machines online.    

Answer 2

Music and video files? Internet Cache?

Answer 3

This is a very useful tool that allows you to visualize your hard drive. It shows you what applications take up all your hard drive space. Simply follow the instructions and report back what you found, if you need more help :)

http://windirstat.info/

WinDirStat is a disk usage statistics viewer and cleanup tool for Microsoft Windows (all current variants).

By the way: My Windows folder (Vista Home Premium) is taking 14GB of my hard drive. It's quite a lot.

Answer 4

internet cache

Answer 5

Hi mickp

first of all did your computer come with vista already installed.

When vista is installed  the hard drive is partitioned and  vista's recovery files are placed on one of the partitions. that is so you can use the recovery disk  if you have a problem.

If you  format  make sure you do not format the partition with the vista recovery files on it otherwise you will not be able to use  the recovery disk    you could look at your second partition and if its large enough try  partition magic or simular software to make another partition. then transfer all the  recovery files to that partition

eg-; DRIVE C  main drive D-; recovery files

change to c drive     d drive and     (e drive   recovery files)

Answer 6

Use Windows explorer to look at the files on your computer, checking the size of folders as you go - you can't possibly lose 100Gb!

Answer 7

Uninstall useless programs. Or just back up all of your files and reformat.

Answer 8

have you photos/films /music on your PC.

if so have you more than one player installed~ie windows media/real player etc.

if so check in each section of each library ,you might find that each player as a copy of each item +if you have more than 1 photo program check also.

then delete all the duplicates just keep the ones in pictures /music etc.

hope this helps

Answer 9

vista is the problem note vista takes 8gb of hard drive space to install what recommend doing is installing an second hard drive and installing all of you programs to that hard drive that is what i am, doing now and it does not slow down the computer at all it actually makes it faster also try system restore back to the very first restore point