getting rid of hard drive hogs for better DVD burns?

[ulTRAX]

I've long had problems getting a decent defrag... often running Windows XP then Nortons Speed Disk. There were some big chunks of the drive that were resistant to being defragged... and looking at reports... I began to suspect this had an effect in preventing big video vob files from being defraged too. So what were the hard drive hogs?

Some months ago I found my Windows XP RESTORE file was over well over 5 gigs in size. Who needed to go back that far? Probably no one. The default XP setting for RESTORE is 10% of the HD. I have a 60 gig drive... imagine if you have a 200gig drive! To get to RESTORE go to CONTROL PANEL/SYSTEM. To delete files there just uncheck the box. Then recheck it to create a new restore point. Under SETTINGS you can change the % of the drive it takes up.

But this I just learned today: If you're running Nortons System Works there's another hard drive hog called C:\RECYCLER/NPROTECT. It too was set for 10% disk space as the default and my file was 6 gigs in size. That was odd since I didn't even have the PROTECT feature activated and it had files in it dated from when I first installed Windows XP over ME. Since these are protected files they can't just be deleted the ordinary way since Windows doesn't know about them. It also explains why Windows seemed unable to defrag them. In Nortons thre's a setting to reduce the % of drive space the files can take up... and an option on how many days it will save files. Since I had PROTECT shut off... it somehow collected files while ignoring the 7 day default to delete them.

Here's the procedure to delete these files.

http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/nsw.nsf/0/831aa5c6ef0d750685256c370048ad89?OpenDocument

My last burn since I delete nprotect and did a defrag is one of the best yet in terms of quality.

[Chizzmo]

There is also another very easy way to clean up your old saved restores.
When you do a disc cleanup, do your c:/ drive when it finishes your scan and tells you how much space you can clean up, you will notice two tabs at the top of the display. disc clean up and more options. Click on the more options and the last one down is restore points. click clean up and it will delete all the saved restore points except your last one. In windows XP cleanup is located in start>all programs>accessories>systems tools>disc cleanup. good to do every month or two atleast.

[eric545]

ulTRAX

Your first major problem is called Norton's! I learned about all the ways that Norton's can and does slow down a computer the hard way (just like you). My best advice is get rid of Norton's all together.

For a good defrag you need Diskeeper 10. I use Drive Image 7 to back up my C:\ drive at least weekly to a folder on another drive. Before every backup I first create a new restore point. After creating that new restore point I double left click on My Computer which puts all my hard drives on screen.

On that screen I right click on my C: drive and select Properties. On the Properties page, I then click the Disk Cleanup button. After disk cleanup does it's thing you will be presented with a tabbed window. Click the More Options tab, then on the bottom of the page click remove all except the most current restore points button. Then click OK, and OK.

After doing that I then run Diskeeper 10. After Diskeeper has finished, I then perform a full backup (often I perform more than one backup to different drives). I go through that same procedure at least once a week and my computer always hums. I can edit video using Adobe and at the same time burn a video DVD.

PS: Your normal recycle bin is also 10% by default. Even though my C: drive is only an 80Giger, I still lower the size of the recycle bin to 2 or 3 percent.

Eric

[locoeng]

I've been trying to free up some space on my HDD for the last few days and have noticed that when I open Norton's protected recycle bin that I have 1,000 odd files that I cannot get rid of...this post is some good info. Thanks guys.


@eric545

I wouldn't have a problem ridding my puter of Norton's, but what do you suggest as a replacement...Panda?

[Chewy]

Under options with norton's turn off all protection of recycling bin, I hate letting norton's take over my computer but the virus scanning is top notch.

[locoeng]

@chewy

I thought I had done that through the properties of Norton's recycle bin, but everytime I reopen it the files are still there...not listed of coarse, so I haven't a clue what they are. I'll check into disabling recycle bin through Norton's CP.