you will need to go through your files and folders and find out what is taking up the space and either move some of that stuff to a flash drive, external drive or burn to cd or dvd. also make sure you empty the recycle bin. Do a disc cleanup and have it get rid of as much as you can.
There are some free programs you can get that show in graph form exactly where the big files are.
You can go through your windows explorer right clicking folders and checking their size also to find where the big ones are.
Check add remove programs and if you have some in there you no longer need or use by all means get rid of them.

Pictures and music and video files are usually the hogs they take up a lot of space so any of those you can move off of that drive the better.
Always remember anytime you remove something you still have to go empty the recycle bin.

allowing it to try to run won't hurt it will just try to do as much as it can but it needs that space to be able to do it's job properly. You also can set your system restore points to use less space but be sure you don't cut it down too much.

Why not just burn a bunch of pics/all your pics to cds/DVD if you have the capability. That alone would probably free up enough space

You may also want to run chkdsk /f Or right click the drive in explorer, select properties, then tools, then check for errors. It will probably need to reboot to complete whether you run the chkdsk or use the tools/check for errors approach.

Sometimes that can free up some space if there are erroneous directory entries.

Xinorbis
is one of the free programs I mentioned

Your hard drive likes to have 20 to 25% free space for the volatile swap file to work efficiently. You may have noticed the activity light on the front of your tower coming on far more than usual, this is because it has to work harder shuffling the data around because the swap file is smaller. This also tends to slow the computer.

I should have mentioned that before trying to defrag I did empty my recycle bin, ran Ccleaner, and ran Error check. I did not reboot after doing these however.

My computer guy put TreeSize on my computer which I just opened and can see that 31,000 MB is my iTunes Library. I have very little music there but lots of voice memos, downloaded radio programs, podcasts etc.

Most of the files in iTunes are Wave Audio Files which I remember being told are large files. I was told by a tech guy at the Apple store to change my files from Wave Files to AAC files and they would take less space on my iPod. I came home and tried to do that but it didn't work and I haven't taken the time to figure out why.

I assume if I can change these files to AAC files (or some other type of compressed format?) they won't take up as much space on my hard drive.

I love my iPod and being able to tape radio and listen to it while gardening or walking. I know my library will always be large so I need to figure out how to make the files smaller or get a larger hard drive.

Thanks again for your help!!

Ginny

Oh the heck with all that compressed file stuff, then windows has to un-compress them to open them an it slows down the whole deal.

consider a bigger hard drive,

Others here are very good about installing drives & such.

Stay tuned

I use an ipod to timeshift radio much the way I use Tivo to timeshift TV. I always remove the podcasts after I listen to them, though, so I generally keep the disk space they use to a minimum.

I agree with Zep, though. If you're using Itunes, your drive will fill very quickly. Much larger drives are pretty cheap these days (even for laptops) and if you're using Acronis, you should be able to create an image, install a new drive and restore to the new drive in a short amount of time.

do you not have an external usb hard drive you could just store all of that on and access it on the occasions you need it? They are getting really cheap for nice size ones. That would be a quick fix.

Interesting, amazing, and disappointing to hear that iTunes can be such a problem for one like me that likes to collect information. I would think music lovers would have a ton of music in their iTunes Library. I could delete some things in the library, but that would be as daunting as trying to do away with all the piles of paperwork (important mind you) that clutter my house.

Sounds like I need to get another hard drive put into my computer. I don't want to be plugging in an external hard drive every day.

I will also see if I can delete any programs and other things you suggested to free up space.

Compressing the files isn't a good option?

Such a problem but again, I am one who loves to have alot of stuff and I guess this is just another example of the problems that can create.

Thanks again for your advice.

Ginny

Ginny you could get another hard drive and install quite easily. Then leave windows on the current drive but use the Add/Remove feature to uninstall all other programs and re-install those on the new drive. Your music files could also be stored on the new drive. This has absolutely no affect on performance so you would not find it a problem but it would create the needed free space on the current C: drive.

Of course if you wish you could re-install everything on a new drive.