Have an Azus Notebook: Hard drive getting close to be being full of photographs. I have copied them all down to CD's and deleted them from computer however the drive still shows as...

igh712 Loc: Port Orange, Florida, USA

Hard drive getting close to be being full of photographs. I have copied them all down to CD's and deleted them from computer however the drive still shows as almost full. How can I ensure that the deleted stuff had freed up space. Also very slow and machine comes up with waiting for cache. Any bright suggestions?

Thanks in advance!

Mike D. Loc: Crowley County, CO.

Somewhere in the Control Panel is a program that will check for unused files and such. It's called different things and is found in different places depending on the OS you are running but its there. Run the clean up program and then defragment the hard drive. That should speed things up a bit.

Erik_H Loc: Denham Springs, Louisiana

Also, be sure to empty the recycle bin after you are sure that you have copied all the files that you want to save to a CD. BTW, external hard drives are quite inexpensive, you can get a Western Digital 1 TB drive for around $60.

Mike D. Loc: Crowley County, CO.

Erik makes a good point. I haven't had a lot of success with being able to read CD's that I've burned so I tend to lean towards the external storage devices as well. Terrabytes are getting cheaper all the time. Check places like Newegg.com.

Btw Erik, I can guarantee that a certain someone is looking down upon your efforts with a big smile on his face that could only be construed as pride.

It was time well spent and you certainly learned a thing or two along the way. Thank you for sharing, the website is very well done.

igh712 Loc: Port Orange, Florida, USA

Thanks, the operating system is Windows 7 Starter , Will look tomorrow and have defragged and emptied the recycle bin out but that did not help at all! Thanks everyone, I have a "Passport" 1 terrabite but that seems to have died a natural death.

Mike D. Loc: Crowley County, CO.

It may be time for professional help. Viruses and malware can also slow you down. Maybe it's time to reformat the hard drive and reload Windows.

doclab88 Loc: Baldwin Wisconsin

That would be my suggestion also, reinstall windows. I have done this to my older laptop and it is fairly easy. Just be sure to keep any files or photos you want on an external drive. Windows 7 is fairly easy to do this, it walks you thru it. Just do a search for reinstalling windows in your help section and it will tell you what you need to do this. Some will brands will have you create a startup disc prior to doing this, some will require your windows discs if they came with your computer. The hardest part of this was the time to do this. It takes awhile to do and then you have all the windows updates you have to do after. Another thing that may help is upgrading your RAM also. They aren't very expensive either.

queencitysanta Loc: Charlotte, North Carolina

Move your pictures to an external drive and off your computer it will run much faster.

thelazya Loc: Wendell, MN

If you have not already done so, empty your recycle bin, the hard drive will not eliminate these files until you do so, also do a defrag. If you have done many program additions or deletes it may be time for a format.

singleviking Loc: Lake Sebu Eco Park, Philippines

igh712 wrote:

Thanks, the operating system is Windows 7 Starter , Will look tomorrow and have defragged and emptied the recycle bin out but that did not help at all! Thanks everyone, I have a "Passport" 1 terrabite but that seems to have died a natural death.

Sounds to me like you have corrupted USB drivers and you haven't deleted the original files from your internal HDD. Just copying your files to DVD or any other storage device will not delete them from the source location. Your solution of writing to DVD is not cost effective nor efficient. I suspect that if you reinstall your USB drivers from the ASUS website, your USB external HDD will work again (also try using another USB port).

ASUS has a website that allows you to download a full set of drivers, latest version of BIOS, and numerous other patches. And if you're really serious about improving your laptop, I'd consider an upgrade to a WIN7-64 OS version so your laptop can use more than the basic 4 gig of RAM. Just be sure to check that your CPU is listed as "X-64" in your system description in Control Panel. You'll be amazed at how you can almost double your laptop's speed by having 8 or 16 gig of RAM and using a 64 bit OS.

Also, get yourself a good antivirus program. Even AVG 2014 FREE version is better than not having any protection.

wingincamera Loc: Spanaway, Washington

You can also install a larger & faster internal hard drive. You can get them from many sources. In my Asus notebook I changed it from a 500 gig to 950 gig, plus two 1 TB USB drives for backup. I do a monthly complete C drive backup on one usb drive, and weekly data backups on the other usb drive.

singleviking Loc: Lake Sebu Eco Park, Philippines

wingincamera wrote:

You can also install a larger & faster internal hard drive. You can get them from many sources. In my Asus notebook I changed it from a 500 gig to 950 gig, plus two 1 TB USB drives for backup. I do a monthly complete C drive backup on one usb drive, and weekly data backups on the other usb drive.

If the OP really wants to improve his ASUS laptop, then install a 500, 750 gig or 1 terabyte SSD and use USB external drives for files storage and backup. Or, he can even install a WD BLACK2 drive which has both a 128 gig SSD for boot and programs and a 1 terabyte HDD in a single 3.5" enclosure that replaces the present HDD drive.

Searcher Loc: Kent, England

Open Computer, right click on C Drive, Choose Properties and then choose "Disc Cleanup"

Look down the list at what can be deleted and how much space will be given back.

This action should also clear any remnants of the disc-copying.

Reinaldokool Loc: San Rafael, CA

Mike D. wrote:

Somewhere in the Control Panel is a program that will check for unused files and such. It's called different things and is found in different places depending on the OS you are running but its there. Run the clean up program and then defragment the hard drive. That should speed things up a bit.

:thumbup:

Also, I have Iolo's System Mechanic on all my computers. It will not only clean up the hard drive, it will also clean up the registry and a lot of the other internals. It's actually pretty miraculous.

BTW, ASUS is the hidden gem of the computer world. They used to make the best motherboards for desktops and maintained their quality in notebooks. The only thing is that their end-user tech support is not what it should be.

Mike D. Loc: Crowley County, CO.

Reinaldokool wrote:

:thumbup:

Also, I have Iolo's System Mechanic on all my computers. It will not only clean up the hard drive, it will also clean up the registry and a lot of the other internals. It's actually pretty miraculous.

BTW, ASUS is the hidden gem of the computer world. They used to make the best motherboards for desktops and maintained their quality in notebooks. The only thing is that their end-user tech support is not what it should be.

I will look into the system mechanic, thanks for the tip. That might also help the OP's computer as well. Once the registry gets messed clogged with crap a Windows computer just isn't the same.