XP Used Space on New Hard drive - Potentially NERO Files - How to Free Up Used Space

[MysterySpace]

System: Windows XP SP3, 32 bit laptop

Background:
- An old hard drive of 30 GB was replaced via cloning with a new 142 GB drive
- Used space on the new drive was approximately 30+ GB
- iTunes was downloaded at 2.20 MB and then 3.15 GB of music files were added
- Regular automated downloads were made
- Of note, my laptop has a C drive (obviously), and an E Drive for the CD/DVD drive
- The old C drive of 30.0 GB was installed in an external closure and installed as a backup drive (no software)- After plugging in the external drive, Windows assigned the drive as F
- So far so good
- Then Windows made a G drive within the F drive that takes up 6.82 GB of the external F drive, with only one folder called "Recycler" that has a size of 0 bytes
- Windows also created a D drive within the new C drive of 6.82 GB in size, that has two folders in it: one named "Recycler" with a size of 0 bytes, and one called "System Restore" with a size of 414 KB
- Though this D drive has a size of 6.82 GB, My Computer shows that free space on the D Drive is only 4.85 GB, despite the small size of the "System Restore" folder

THEN:
- I began using bundled software to back up files to the old hard drive, installed in the new external USB hard drive enclosure
- The back up program is Nero BackItUp 6
- The user manual for Nero 6 states "the backup information is stored in a temporary folder, which means that you can search for files without having to have the CD in the drive." (CD is previously defined in the manual as a CD, DVD or external hard drive, the latter being applicable to my situation).
- The program was using so much space on my new C drive for the above temporary files, that I stopped using it after 5 days; (the target back up drive was indeed the external F drive)
- Deciding to never use Nero again and after frustrating support from Nero, I wiped the F drive via reformatting, bring it back to 30 GB of free space, which I assume must include the 6.82 GB of the internalized G drive on it, as this G Drive reappeared after reformatting
- All Nero temp files in the C drive were incinerated (over-written with a random pattern of 0's and 1's using System Mechanic Professional v. 10.7.7)

THE PROBLEM
- Given the original size of the new hard drive for C of 142 GB, less the cloned 30.0 GB from the old drive, less the 3.15 GB of music files, less the size of iTunes at 0.002 GB , less any automated downloads (few) and any new saved files (trivial), and even less the mysterious D Drive within the C Drive of 6.82 GB in total size and 4.85 GB of free space, my C Drive should have approximately 103.78 GB free: (142 GB - 30. GB - 3.15 GB - 0.002 GB - 4.85 GB = 103.78 GB
- BUT, My Computer shows that the new C drive has only 87.9 GB of free space, a difference of 16.098 GB; (let's use the figure of 16 GB)

QUESTIONS
1) How do I free up this 16 GB of space on the C drive?
2) If this 16 GB of is made up of Nero 6 temporary files, how do I delete them / recover this 16 GB? (Nero support suggested looking for all files in its temporary folder on the C Drive in ".nda" format, but there none, even when a complete search is done with hidden files and folders shown).
3) What are the mysterious D and G drives for, and can they be deleted/incinerated?

Many thanks,

MysterySpace

-

[zep516]

Hi MysterySpace,

Welcome to Help2Go

Lets look at the free space issue first.

Clean out your temporary internet files and temp files.

Download TFC by OldTimer http://oldtimer.geekstogo.com/TFC.exe to your desktop.

Double-click TFC.exe to run it.

Note: If you are running on Vista, right-click on the file and choose Run As Administrator

TFC will close all programs when run, so make sure you have saved all your work before you begin.

* Click the Start button to begin the cleaning process.
* Depending on how often you clean temp files, execution time should be anywhere from a few seconds to a minute or two.
* Please let TFC run uninterrupted until it is finished.

Once TFC is finished it should restart your computer. If it does not, please manually restart the computer yourself to ensure a complete cleaning.

TFC (Temp File Cleaner) will clear out all temp folders for all user accounts (temp, IE temp, java, FF, Opera, Chrome, Safari), including Administrator, All Users, LocalService, NetworkService, and any other accounts in the user folder. It also cleans out the %systemroot%\temp folder and checks for .tmp files in the %systemdrive% root folder, %systemroot%, and the system32 folder (both 32bit and 64bit on 64bit OSs). It shows the amount removed for each location found (in bytes) and the total removed (in MB).

Before running, it will stop Explorer and all other running applications. When finished, if a reboot is required the user must reboot to finish clearing any in-use temp files.
-- TFC only cleans temp folders.
-- TFC will not clean URL history, prefetch, or cookies. Depending on how often someone cleans their temp folders, their system hardware, and how many accounts are present, it can take anywhere from a few seconds to a minute or more. TFC will completely clear all temp files where other temp file cleaners may fail.

Then see below:


TreeSize Free
Quickly Scan Directory Sizes and Find Space Hogs
TreeSize Free shows the size of a folder including all subfolders and files. In an Explorer-like style, also the wasted space.

JAM Software - Windows Freeware

Download it and see if it helps you identify space issues and what's exactly taking up space.

[MysterySpace]

Thank you for you help and suggestions. Unfortunately, as the title suggests, when attempting to download TFC, (TFC by OldTimer http://oldtimer.geekstogo.com/TFC.exe), the program reaches the high 300 kB download range out of a total of 436 kB, and then Chrome displays next to the file name (TFC.exe) "Interrupted". I have attempted several times a day to successfully download the file over numerous days, but all attempts fail, i.e. are "interrupted."

Any suggestions, or, alternative programs very similar to TFC?

Thank you.

Hi MysterySpace,

Welcome to Help2Go

Lets look at the free space issue first.

Clean out your temporary internet files and temp files.

Download TFC by OldTimer http://oldtimer.geekstogo.com/TFC.exe to your desktop.

Double-click TFC.exe to run it.

Note: If you are running on Vista, right-click on the file and choose Run As Administrator

TFC will close all programs when run, so make sure you have saved all your work before you begin.

* Click the Start button to begin the cleaning process.
* Depending on how often you clean temp files, execution time should be anywhere from a few seconds to a minute or two.
* Please let TFC run uninterrupted until it is finished.

Once TFC is finished it should restart your computer. If it does not, please manually restart the computer yourself to ensure a complete cleaning.




Then see below:


TreeSize Free
Quickly Scan Directory Sizes and Find Space Hogs
TreeSize Free shows the size of a folder including all subfolders and files. In an Explorer-like style, also the wasted space.

JAM Software - Windows Freeware

Download it and see if it helps you identify space issues and what's exactly taking up space.

[zep516]

Hi,

Can you try and download this,
Please download MiniToolBox http://download.bleepingcomputer.com...iniToolBox.exe and run it.

Checkmark following boxes:

• List last 10 Event Viewer log
• List Installed Programs
• List Users, Partitions and Memory size
• Click Go and post the result.

Joe..