are there any disadvantages in compreesing a HD ? 4

[skip555]

what if any are the disadvantages of "compressing the C drive to save disc space " Os is , vista home premium I'm trying to help a friend out she has a 66gb HD and 9mb free .

we cant figure out whats filling the drive , I was going to use go to my pc to remote in and see what I can find but there isn't even enough space to load that (shes 600 miles away )

I borrowed a vista laptop from my daughter in law so I could look at the OS ., when I go to the c drive I see the option to "compress this drive to save disk space "

what if anything is the disadvantage to doing this ?

she is a photographer so I suspect a lot of it is picture files would compressing affect them ?

 

[Glenn9999]

There are way many more disadvantages than advantages for compressing a hard drive. Consider it a supreme last resort, even to purchasing a newer bigger hard drive. There are many other and better options - for example if an investigation yields it is the picture files, off-loading them to CD/DVD would be preferable, especially since she would need backup.

But that being said, it could be a number of things. What I would do first in this case, is determine what is exactly taking up the space. "Suspecting" anything is a bad idea in trying to fix a computer without confirming things. For example, there are malware/virii that will write junk on a drive to cause problems like this. Then there's regular programs that will write junk files, too, and not clean them up. Any number of possibilities are possible when it comes to the reasons for a full hard drive.

The first step is to figure out exactly what is occupying all the space.

It is not possible for anyone to acknowledge truth when their salary depends on them not doing it.

 

[skip555]

thanks Glenn and I agree which is why I'm trying to get in remotely with only 9mb I cant load gotompc . I'm going to try to talk her through moving some files this morning and see if I can remote in

unfortunately shes 600 miles away so it needs to be remote I would love to just sit down at the keyboard

when I saw the compress option something told me it wasn't a good idea which is why I posted

 

[G0AOZ]

You have identified the first step... Check to see what's filling up the drive before doing anything else! Get her to install TreeSizeFree which will quickly show where the drive space is being used up.

Only then should a decision be made on what happens next. Whilst 66Gb is adequate for Vista on its own, several progs and a load of piccies and it'll most likely be all used up.

In the past I've had a couple of users who have experienced problems after trying to compress their drives, so my advice FWIW would be to fit a bigger drive rather than try compression.

ROGER - G0AOZ.

 

[Glenn9999]

You have identified the first step... Check to see what's filling up the drive before doing anything else! Get her to install TreeSizeFree which will quickly show where the drive space is being used up.

Yes this is the way to do it! I use Diskdata for the purpose but the idea is the same (I'm trying your suggestion, star for making it). It should tell you at a glance where the space is being used, assuming there isn't any disk corruption or ADSes present. Presence of either should become evident in the course of running this program.

Anyhow, the thing with this is that there can be a great many issues regarding this kind of thing which require a number of different solutions. The potential for messing something up is high too (deleting good files, messing up the system, etc), so definitely tread lightly on trying to solve it!

It is not possible for anyone to acknowledge truth when their salary depends on them not doing it.

 

[Nelviticus]

66GB is a very odd size - is it a larger drive split into two or more partitions? If so she could move her pics to the second partition (which will show up as a second drive in Windows Explorer).

Nelviticus

 

[skip555]

OK I was able to get in using the free trial of the technician panel at logmein

one of the first questions I asked is where do you store your pictures ?

she told me she had a external drive she bought just for the purpose

the external drive didn't show up , it turns out it was in a bad USB port looking at folders I was able to pull 13gb of pics out of "my pics " on C and into the external drive

I did download tree size but by that point 3+ hours in we both had enough so I'll do another session later on

for some reason the technician panel didn't always accept my mouse clicks or show me popups so I need her at he screen while I work

compression was already checked so I'm guessing someone else addressed the issue at some point

it does show 66gb but there is a it looks like a 8gb partition for restore

I see D drive RP 8gb and it is full
how do I clear that or should I just leave it ?

my goal is to free up 30 gb or so

thanks for the responses

 

[skip555]

I forgot to say it's a 300gb external drive and less than one GB was used once we got it online

 

[PRPhx]

I would ave her do the following:
1) Do a search for .txt, .log, .bak files. Either delete them or lff load them to a cd or dvd.

2) Run chkdsk c: from the command prompt.

3) If #1 comes back with any problems, I would run chkdsk c: /R from the command prompt. Then reboot and wait.

4) Download, install, run ccleaner (it's free). It will also clear out files. Also clear out her internet browser temp files, etc.

5) Finally have her un-install any unused software.

 

[goombawaho]

You can't "clean up" 30GB of space. A cleanup is more like 2GB or less of normal junk files. Even if you turn off system restore, it won't give you 30GB. You'll have to move a lot of data off the C:\ drive but if you have 5GB free (let's say) that would be enough.


D: is probably your factory system restore partition - I wouldn't mess with it.

 

[skip555]

I did find that D is the factory partition RP ,(restore point) so I wont mess with it , shes getting a Disc full D error but I found a fix for that on the HP site

we have 13gb free at the moment but I'm still looking to move more data to e . one problem is updates , while I was working photo shop wanted to install a 6gb update

we started off with me having her remove unused programs .

$$$ are a big issue for both of us at the moment so I need to work with what she has .

I know just enough to be dangerous about this end of the biz, I'm running a couple of P4 XP boxs with a 40gb HD and I only use about half of it , I was thinking she could get by with the same but I'm not sure what Vista and photoshop use

 

[kjv1611]

For checking file/folder sizes, you can try Glary Utilities. It has the one-click clean-up and all of that, but it ALSO has a tab full of extra tools (Modules).

Under the section, Files & Folders, the one called Disk Analysis is the one you want. It'll run MUCH quicker than the 3+ hours you had to deal with. Think in minutes with this one. It seems to work really well. Just make sure you refresh it, or run it again after you've moved/deleted stuff.

Also, you say she's running Adobe Photoshop? Is she running a whole Adobe package/suite, or just Photoshop? I'm just asking, b/c the Adobe Creative programs, alone, can take loads of space. Besides that, there is always the possibility she has other programs installed that she does not need. For instance, does she have any games installed (not a little flash game, but full "real" games)? If so, some of those can be rather enormous in total disk usage.

These programs all work well for general clean-up/removal of temp files, general performance improvement, shortcut/registry fixers, and all of that:
CCleaner (already mentioned)
Glary Utilities (mentioned earlier in this post) and
Advanced System Care

Also, if this is a Windows XP machine (I'm guessing it's Vista, given the size of the restore partition), she could use RegScrubXP that might also help. You have to get it from

http://www.majorgeeks.com

(a few other sites probably still have it as well). The other programs can be gotten from

http://www.download.com

Also, in case she wanted to clean up, get rid of, some of the preinstalled junk on her computer, that might free a few resources AND a little storage space, she could run the downloadable app from this site:

http://www.pcdecrapifier.com

And here's another good utility after all the rest is said and done, to put things in the best order (my opinion):
Auslogics Disk Defrag

It has settings to also go behind and clean up temp files as well, and has some other exceptions/changes you can make in the settings - just take a look, and change settings as appropriate.

As for long-term remote assistance, if you need FREE, try Gbridge - it works well, I think. I've been using it personally at home, and helping a handful of individuals in different states. My brother also has used it to do 3d Graphics Editing/Rendering on a one machine, while he ran other stuff on his "current" machine, or the one in front of him..

 

[kjv1611]

Oh, another couple tips for long term fix...

1. To keep the drive as clean as possible, you can set up CCleaner to start whenever Windows starts, and to do an immediate clean-up, while hiding next to the clock in the task tray, then close on completion. It usually only takes a few seconds to a minute, tops (think old hardware for 1 minute) if you've already cleaned up the machine.

2. To keep her files in the right place, you could use something like SyncBack (their free edition) to copy/move files on a schedule, or even when the PC is idle. I've not tried to use it for a complete movement of files, but I know it works perfectly for back-up and syncing of data. You might could use that to make sure her stuff always gets saved or moved to her external drive..

And here's another thought. Someone mentioned log files. I've seen (rare) instances where a database's internal logs would grow so terribly huge that by itself, it'd take up the whole hard drive. If you run the Glary Utilities Disk Analysis I mentioned, you'd be able to easily find the culprit IF that's the case.

And don't forget - if this thing is running Windows Vista or 7 instead of XP, you'll have a harder time trimming down the total size on the drive, b/c just the OS can take up so much more space.

 

[kmcferrin]

A bit late, but here's one very good reason why you wouldn't want to use compression at this point:

While you can compress a disk to free space, then clean it up, then uncompress it, if the process that is consuming disk space is still running then it will eat up your newly freed space just as fast as you can free it up, leaving you unable to decompress later.

One other thought...with Vista and Windows 7 there is a folder called WINSXS...it grows pretty much every time that you install something and cannot be deleted without causing problems. If it turns out that WINSXS is eating up all of your space then you may want to either migrate to a larger hard disk or back up your data, wipe the disk, and do a fresh install (being careful not to install apps that you don't need or use).

________________________________________
CompTIA A+, Network+, Server+, Security+
MCTS:Windows 7
MCSE:Security 2003
MCITP:Server Administrator
MCITP:Enterprise Administrator
MCITP:Virtualization Administrator 2008 R2
Certified Quest vWorkspace Administrator

 

[Sympology]

I had exactly the same issue on a relatives PC running XP.
The culprit was WinSXS (side by side)

It's a volume to get over dll hell, but creates a new hell.
Here's what I found.

1. The drive was not aprtioned correctly, the OEM had split it into:
c:
D:
However there was an unused partion (it won't show unless you use disk manager)! So bit of messing around and got C: expanded.
Next unsinstalled all the crap the OEM's stick on, not only did this reduce the "normal" space, but shrank SXS.
Next used CCleaner and set it to remove hotfix unistallers (as well as usual junk)
Finally reduced the cahce for the temp internet files, Virtual memory and recycle bin.

hey presto by the end of it, suddenly had 40gb free!

Robert Wilensky:
We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true.

 

[skip555]

last time I was in I noticed that Disc compression was already checked on C , it looked like someone had tired to address the problem in the past , she said its been going on for a year or so but is just now getting worse

so should I leave it as is or un check it ?

 

[kmcferrin]

That depends on how much space she has free. Uncompressing the disk will require more space than the compressed disk, obviously. Which means that she will have less free space than she already has when you are done, assuming that she has any leftover at all.

On the other hand, I would not recommend compressing your boot drive and leaving it that way long term.

________________________________________
CompTIA A+, Network+, Server+, Security+
MCTS:Windows 7
MCSE:Security 2003
MCITP:Server Administrator
MCITP:Enterprise Administrator
MCITP:Virtualization Administrator 2008 R2
Certified Quest vWorkspace Administrator

 

[Glenn9999]

The key issue with compressed drive software is that it requires extra resources to compress and decompress files. This will slow down the system and ultimately increase the possibility of data corruption and ultimately in some ways will increase wear on the drive. To add to that, graphic images are often not too compressible, which leaves a little gain to begin with.

If you can manage it, remove the drive compression. Using it in the first place actually was a bad idea.

It is not possible for anyone to acknowledge truth when their salary depends on them not doing it.

 

[kjv1611]

One thing to keep in mind. I know you say you're both strapped for cash (and believe me, I feel your pain), but if you can save a little here or there, say from not eating out for a couple weeks or month, or something else, one or both of you may could come up with the necessary funds to put in a new hard drive.

For instance, here are a few examples:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152181&Tpk=f3 500gb

(out of stock right now, but one of the fastest mechanical drives on the market - 500GB, and $55, appx...if they get any more in)

If you seriously wanted to consider that option, have a look at this Google Shopping Search.

Then there is also another very good drive, 640GB Western Digital Black. However, it tends to cost more. It's a better drive, I think, as far as durability goes, but speed-wise, they're about equal.

I'm just saying if possible don't rule out new hardware - at least the hard drive. Especially if she's making money off the photo editing. If her computer becomes unusable, then how will she keep the income from her photo work?

 

[strongm]

>To add to that, graphic images are often not too compressible

I think you mean that graphic images, since they are generally already compressed (jpg etc) are difficult to compress further. RAW images are definitely compressible