Space, the computer's frontier

[asterroc]

Holy shucking fit! I was trying to download some free things from the iTunes store, and it says my hard drive is full. My 70-Gig HD on my desktop. I don't download porn unlike some people I know. I don't download movies like others. I only have a 20-Gig iPod and I think I only own around 30 Gigs of music. Windows and Office and Warcraft III don't take up 40 Gigs. I'm going to run a defrag overnight, but that won't figure out the problem for me.

Help me out here folks. I've already gone and cleared out temp files. I went into my iTunes folder and there were a bunch of .tmp files there too that seem to have cleared up a couple freakin' GIGS of space. I am suspicious that it's a fucked up iTunes library, but I'm not sure how to fix it. I've seen visualization programs for the Mac that allow you to see how much disk space is allocated to different programs, is there one for the PC (Win XP)?

*grumble grumble* I didn't notice anything that looked like spyware when I ran the Task Manager, so I think I'm safe there. What else can I do to figure out (a) where my space's gone, and (b) how to stop gap in until I can figure it out?

Thanks in advance for any help.

ETA: Ugh, Disk Defragmenter says I can't run the defrag effectively b/c I now have only 6% of the disk free (5 Gigs) and it wants at least 15%. *grumble*

Comments

[the-xtina.livejournal.com]

Try running EasyCleaner, check for unnecessary files?

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

Is this it?

[the-xtina.livejournal.com]

Ayup!

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

W00t! Thanks. I didn't want to be downloading malware. :-P Is that term even still used anymore, "malware"?

[the-xtina.livejournal.com]

I call it all suckware, so I'm not the one to ask.  :)

This is more of a "Let's see what's filling everything up!" thing, less of a suckware-remover.  Still, you'd be surprised (or maybe not, at this point) how much cruft can build up over time.  Temp folders alone, lordy.

I'm assuming you're using Windows, since you're investigating EC there - check out Folder Size.  It won't total sizes in the status bar, sadly, but it will show... here...

"Folder Size for Windows adds a new column to the Details view in Windows Explorer. The new column shows not only the size of files, but also the size of folders. It keeps track of which folders you view, and scans them in the background so you can see complete size of all files within the folder."

I ♥ it like whoa.  And they're right, where it's missing, Windows Explorer looks incomplete.

[l0stmyrel1g10n.livejournal.com]

empty your trash can/recycling bin. i realized the other day that i had >10 GB of stuff in my trash. computer was a lot happier once i emptied it. that probably won't solve all your problems, but it may help.

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

Only some 50 Megs there, but I've managed to clean up 9 Gigs of random crap. I just need a couple more to hit the 15% (currently at 12%) that defrag says it needs to run a defrag well. I discovered so many more mp3's that I'd lost, it's awesome. I need to get a bigger iPod now... And fix this computer so I can then spend the time to move them all over here.