How to clean-up and free-up your Computer Hard Drive
One of the most effective way to speed up your
Windows computer systems, short of adding a super fast hard drive or more
memory, is for you to optimize your hard drive. It can be hard to find what
you're looking for if your hard drive is full of unneeded files. Just like with
your paper filing cabinet, do yourself a big favour and weed out unnecessary
stuff. Here are the step needed to help you clean-up and free-up your systems
hard drive and reclaim lost of hard drive space.
Here you will find the steps to Managing Windows XP Recycle Bin. And one of the
biggest space waster of the bunch is Internet Explorer, which is usually
configured to occupy as much as 100MB of your hard disk with temporary files.
Plus tips on How to Resizing the Recycle Bin, How to turn the Recycle Bin off,
and How To purge only those files that have been in the Recycle Bin a long time.
Steps: Applications and Documents
1. First go to your system tools and use disk clean-up, then open your document
and applications folders. Drag the icons for unneeded documents to the Recycle
Bin. Disk clean-up will do a basic clean-up, but not the best clean-up.
2. Copy documents you want to keep but don't expect to use often to CDR, floppy
disks or other backup media.
3. Now move these documents to the Recycle Bin/Trash after you've copied them or
delete them.
4. Remember to empty your Recycle Bin/Trash after you completing all the above
steps.
5. You can remove all the old unwanted application programs by using an good
un-installer program. Take a good look at all those old programs that you
haven't used in a long time, and remove them if you think you don't need them.
In Windows 98/ME, use the Add/Remove control panel. On the Mac, many program
installers include a Remove option; you need to run the installer again and
choose Remove.
System Folders Tip: Most application programs typically put files in your
Windows or System folders in addition to what you see in the application folder
itself; that's why un-installer programs are helpful. Text files don't take up
much space on a disk. Sound, graphics and especially video files take up much
more.
Steps: Backup and Temporary Files
1. Most of your programs should clean up their temporary files by themselves,
but sometimes they don't. Check your folders for file names that begin with a
tilde (~) or end with TMP. Drag them to the Recycle Bin/Trash or delete them.
2. Check your work and application folders for backup files whose names end with
BAK. Remove these if you don't need them.
3. Warning - Don't empty the Recycle Bin or the Trash after completing the above
steps.
4. You need to reboot your computer to make sure you haven't deleted any
necessary system file.
5. Now open your applications to make sure they boot properly if you deleted any
files from their folders.
6. Now if you have no problems starting Windows and your programs, you can empty
the Recycle Bin/Trash. Otherwise, return files to their original places.
Tip: Programs use temporary files to store the version of a document you're
currently working on. When you save changes, the changes made to the temporary
file are saved to your disk. Now is a good time to run Scandisk and Disk
defragmenter in your system tools.
Warnings: Don't make changes to your system unless you know exactly what you're
doing. Only delete files that you recognize and files that you don't need.
