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GrantMac · Contributor Joined: 18 Dec 2006 Posts: 7

This particular problem is with my mother's laptop and it has
been annoying her for a while now. She only uses the laptop
for downloading movies and music, then burns them to disc
and deletes them from her computer.

If she had 50% space available on her C:/ and then downloaded
a movie (say 700MB), the space available would drop to 45%
She then burns the movie using Nero 7 and deletes the movie but
her available space will only go back up to say 47%. Over a period
a time this is gradually eating away at her storage space.

I've searched high and low just incase the files are being saved
somewhere else but no matter how many little files i delete nothing
seems to give a real significant amount of storage back.

Any helpful advice would be appreciated cry baby

Stevo · GURU Joined: 09 Apr 2006 Posts: 308 Location: Tennessee

Have you tried defragging? Right click on the disk icon in My Computer, select properties, change tab to disk tools, and select defragment (I think that's for XP).

If that doesn't help you could also use a power-deleter like McAfee Shredder that nearly reformats the section of the hard drive where the file was.

Good luck.

Stevo
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GrantMac · Contributor Joined: 18 Dec 2006 Posts: 7

I've tried DeFragging and had no joy.
Downloaded CCleaner for her aswell but no big gains

It's as if something is being retained somewhere after
deletion or that the previously used space is not being
made available again.

Stevo · GURU Joined: 09 Apr 2006 Posts: 308 Location: Tennessee

If the space wasn't being made available, the defrag should have fixed it; so that means that there is probably a 'shadow', or maybe a backup of the files somewhere. What browser does she use? Does she use software like iTunes or Windows Media Player? If you haven't already, make hidden files visible (Tools, Folder Options, tab to View, bullet Show Hidden Files and Folders) and look for 'shadow' files (ex when you open a Word doc, it creates a shadow file in the same folder as the one opened).

Good luck.

Stevo
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