How do I Free up Hard Disk Space

A full hard drive or almost full hard disk will lead to all kinds of problems such as hard to write data to the system files, hard to rearrange files, hard to find data, hard to run system maintenance functions etc.. Computer needs a degree of free hard disk space to function properly. And free up hard disk space will effectively speed up your PC, especially the hard drive is getting close to its capacity.

The easiest way to free up hard disk space is touninstall unused programs.

• Click Start-Control Panel.
• Select and double click Add or Remove programs.
• Choose from the list of programs and software you intend to uninstall by clicking and selecting Remove.

The second way of freeing up hard disk space is to remove files which you do not need. These files include:

• Unused programs and applications
• Large multimedia files you have forgotten about
• Files you seldom access which can be stored elsewhere
• Temporary operating system files that can be deleted
• Internet browsing related files
• Emails you haven’t bothered to delete
• Old installation files you don’t need anymore
• Windows components you don’t use
• Files in Recycle Bin
• The list goes on and on and on . . . . .

To delete these unneeded files, you can use Disk Cleanup to analyze your hard drive to look for them and safely delete them.

• Click Start-All Programs-Accessories-System Tools
• Select Disk Cleanup
• Select the hard disk you want to clean up in Select Drive dialog box and click Ok

You need to wait while Disk Cleanup calculates how much space you are able to clean up.

The third way to free up hard disk space is to use Disk Defragmenter which can consolidate fragmented files on PC’s hard disk.

• Click Start-All Programs-System Tools.
• Select Disk Defragmenter.
• Click Continue when a window prompts you to go through with the operation
• Click Defragment Now.

The fourth way of freeing up hard disk space is to use System Restore which will create recovery disks. But System Restore allocates up to 15% of hard disk space to a Shadow Copy, or Volume Snapshot Device. So we should find the current allocation of disk space for the Shadow Copy and reduce the Shadow Copy.

• Click Start-All Programs-Accessories.
• Right-click on Command Prompt and select Run as administrator.
• Type in: vssadmin list shadowstorage.

Through above four methods, you can troubleshoot a lack of hard disk space and your computer will perform to the max.