how do i free up space on laptop hard drive????

hi, this is my first forum, hope it helps me.

i've a dell inspiron 2200 laptop (bought from my sis, bout 3 yrs old) with no music or photo's on it. my HD is 34GB..... i reinstalled windows XP on it last wk to speed it up as it only has 500RAM or there abouts, not a very quick machine!

after i had reinstalled the disc, it was quicker but i still have only 11GB free. maybe this is a normal amount but i've nothing on th laptop which is why i'm confused..... should i not have more free space... please let me no if you can help at all. thank you!

Disable System Restore. That'll free up a *lot* of space.

To do this, right click My Computer. Hit Properties. Go to the System Restore tab and check "Disable System Restore."

Also, reduce the size of the Internet Explorer cache. If you have IE7 (the one with the tabs), go to Tools -> Internet Options. Click the Settings button by Browsing History. Set the "disk space" option to "100 MB." If you have IE6 (the one without the tabs), click Tools -> Internet Options. Click the Settings button in the middle and change the number to "100."

These should help.

windows is a big thing yno it might not fit onto a tiny mchine you should upgrade your disk o get a lighter OS

A typical Windows XP installation by itself only takes up something like 4-5GB. Suggesting a different operating system is *not* the answer here by any stretch.

ok sorry i had to do that to a pc i got on ebay i baught a pc for a tenner but the xp installation was killing it

Delete things and optimise he hard drive?

Run start > all programs > accessories > system tools > disk cleanup

if i diable system restore what will that deletefrom laptop.... don't no what this is, never heard of it before, don't wanna mess it up any more..... plus i think that photos i deleted b4 are still on the laptop. searched but cant find them.

System Restore is this brain-dead thing that Microsoft added to Windows XP. It lets you "roll back" the computer to how it was some previous date. It's really all but worthless. If you screw up the computer enough to need it, System Restore is one of the poorest options available for fixing it.

In the process of doing this, the computer makes copies of all sorts of files and settings for various dates and times. These copies take up incredible amounts of hard drive space. By disabling System Restore, you are telling the computer that you don't care about these old copies of files.

Clear the recycle bin.

i've cleared my recycle bin, funnily enuf i don't think i'd leave that as a last resort but thanks. will disable system restore so, shud i notice a difference straight away.....

You should notice that you have much more free hard drive space. It might take until the next reboot.

I'd also suggest that you defragment the hard drive. It should be in Start -> All Programs -> Accessories -> System Tools. Defragging the hard drive takes several hours, so I suggest that you start a defrag before you go to bed tonight. It'll probably be done by morning.

Remove software that you don't use from the control panel.

Tino, are you just having little bursts of inspiration, or are you intentionally spacing these ideas out?

All of the suggestions are good, of course

my recycle bin looks like this



nearly all the things are total a mods which dont work