low disk space on local drive with Red line

I need to gain some space on the local C drive I still have low space with a red line running through the bar on bottom the Icon of the C drive local disk.. I tried various things like indexing ,disk clean, shrink and volum check and repair , how ever the Red line is still there but my mail and IE 9 works pretty fast , so whats the fix to get rid of the Red line or just leave it ?

The red line on your disk space usage is warning you that you're below the threshold of the disk defragmentation utility being fully effective. In general, you are best to have at least 10% of your disk space free. The other reason for the warning is that Vista can swell or shrink by a number of gigabytes as it downloads updates, creates restore points, and does other activities. When you're down to less than 10% free, that can have a negative impact on system performance.

To get yourself back above 10%, there are a number of things you can do. I suggest the following:

• Uninstall bloatware from your computer (these are programs that came with your computer that you never use).
• Delete any files remaining in your Temp folder.
• Go to Piriform and download the well known and trusted CCleaner.
• With CCleaner installed, run the "Cleaner" icon to find and eliminate any junk or unused files. NOTE: Do not click on "Registry"--it's not recommended to use 3rd party tools to clear out registry entries.
• Run the "Tools" --> "System Restore" in CCleaner and delete older restore points, leaving the two most recent ones. Only do this if you know you won't need to roll back any earlier (meaning the 2nd most recent restore point is trustworthy).

I also recommend going through the "Speed Up Vista Performance" tutorial. These tips are located there, and many others that you might find useful.

Even though HD prices are still high, you may be able to find some bargains for USB 2.0 external HDs. They are generally not fast enough to run programs from. But they are fine for storing data. The last few PCs I've owned I've kept my main HD usage down to below 40%. When doing a defrag I make sure to clean off the crap until I'm below 30% usage. Then "light defraggers" like Purin or Auslogics typically defrag in less than 1/2 hour if you defrag several times a week. Takes the bore out of that chore.

I bought some 32GB USB2 sticks for $20 a piece (from Newegg). They are excellent for offloading data.

My wife keeps all her data on USB sticks. She travels between 3 locations with 3 different PCs and that is the most convenient way to keep the data in sync. So it is not a big deal.

Example: Newegg.com - PNY Attaché 2 32GB USB 2.0 Flash Drive Model P-FD32GATT2-GE

The USB 3.0 sticks can be had for about $33 ea these days. Even plugged into a USB 2.0 port I get 24 MB/s writes for large video files.

I paid about $60 for this one a year ago:
Newegg.com - ADATA Value-Driven S102 Pro Effortless Upgrade 32GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive (Gray) Model AS102P-32G-RGY

As you can see it's down to nearly half price already. The only difference when plugging into a USB 2.0 port is you get a little nag message about how it would go faster if you plugged into a USB 3.0 port. DUH!!

But for stuff like image backups I still think it's a good idea of have an external or docking stations with internal drives. Due to the ongoing internal HD price gouge the docking station isn't as much of a money saver as it was a year or two ago. Fortunately I bought a few WD Sata III before the price skyrocketed.

Docking stations are the ultimate. I have a USB2, USB3 and eSata model. The HDDs I use are the ones I recovered from my 4 laptops when I switched them to SSDs.

This is all good for my desktops. But for laptops, sticks are more practical. The USB3 stick you posted is nice, but a bit slow. I got this one on which I installed Windows 8 which works perfectly and quite fast - about the speed of an internal HDD.

At the time for $2 a GB it was a good deal. I don't run code off USB sticks. I don't have laptops, smart phones, tablets, Blackberry or any of that jazz. So no need. I use the stick to watch video on my DVD player as much as anything. The HD price gouge really pissed me off since I was picking up some nice TB WD caviar black Sata III 6 Gb/s. drives for about $92 shipping included. Now the same drive is $135 shipped. Puts a damper on file collecting.

Okay, after reading your other thread, wirth image, 10Gig is way to small for a healthy os drive.

Whatever youve done to your system has muched up your drives.

Patonb said:

Okay, after reading your other thread, wirth image, 10Gig is way to small for a healthy os drive.

Whatever youve done to your system has muched up your drives.

Click to expand...

SO HOW CAN i FIX IT the easiest-way

You are gonna need to add space to the drive.

Your screen in the other thread showed 200+Gig in the othere paRTION, Just expand into that.

Patonb said:

You are gonna need to add space to the drive.

Your screen in the other thread showed 200+Gig in the othere paRTION, Just expand into that.

Click to expand...

about a month ago I had a problem, so I started dragging dropping from D to C or vis versa , thats when I messed it up , now I notice duplicate files in programs like movie maker for one, the same date and the same file size, so I tried to delete from drive c the movie maker but it wont let me with out permission , so I left everything as is and some how the computer works well ,but I get a message sometime on low diver space on drive c ? should I do just the dell restore back to original condition would that straighten everything out ? heres the in instructions for the dell restore , not a complete restore? Restoring Your Dell Computer to Original Factory Installation with Dell DataSafe Local Backup 2.0 | Dell

But before you decide to reinstall the system, make sure you have a C partition of sufficient size. I personally prefer to work with a C partition of 60GB which contains only the OS and put my user data into a seperate data partition.

If you currently have user data in the C partition, make sure you save it to an external drive. And don't use Drag and Drop, use this: http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/89196-context-menu-add-copy-folder-move-folder.html

whs said:

But before you decide to reinstall the system, make sure you have a C partition of sufficient size. I personally prefer to work with a C partition of 60GB which contains only the OS and put my user data into a seperate data partition.

If you currently have user data in the C partition, make sure you save it to an external drive. And don't use Drag and Drop, use this: http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/89196-context-menu-add-copy-folder-move-folder.html

Click to expand...

THANK YOU this is great because in program files on my C and drives I have a few duplicates
that I can not remove from one of drives C or D it always asks for permission, I even tried to open as an administrator , and its just taking up space for example movie maker I must have copied it at one time by mistake and now I can remove it from one drive to a back up on a flash drive because its taking up 23MB of space

What i believe you did, was during the instal you selected the wrong drive. This the re made windows on the new smaller C drive and left a un-used version on your old C, now D drive.

The programs on your D drive are pretty much useless to you as despite them being complete, Windows doesn't know about them, and can't use them.

I would suggest, cleaning up the D drive, then expanding C into the empty space. The boot portions of the drive are messed, but its working so don't try n fix it I say.

Most likely you can not open/move as its in use by windows so its locked.

A good way to figure out which copy is being used is to find the system root folder, as done in this old tyhread
http://www.vistax64.com/vista-general/157874-how-find-systemroot-system32-folder.html

Patonb said:

What i believe you did, was during the instal you selected the wrong drive. This the re made windows on the new smaller C drive and left a un-used version on your old C, now D drive.

The programs on your D drive are pretty much useless to you as despite them being complete, Windows doesn't know about them, and can't use them.

I would suggest, cleaning up the D drive, then expanding C into the empty space. The boot portions of the drive are messed, but its working so don't try n fix it I say.

Most likely you can not open/move as its in use by windows so its locked.

A good way to figure out which copy is being used is to find the system root folder, as done in this old tyhread
http://www.vistax64.com/vista-general/157874-how-find-systemroot-system32-folder.html

Click to expand...

Thanks for the info, Ill leave it alone , everything is working , If I change anything it would have to be simple like the virtual memory change ?

No. You'd need to use something like partion magic to do it, or vista can, but i havebnt used the built in program.

Resize a Partition for Free in Windows 7 or Vista - How-To Geek

The problem is if you moved programs around without installing and uninstalling them, there's likely a bunch of crossover references in the registry. If all your apps came with the machine you may be better off to wipe and start over.

MilesAhead said:

The problem is if you moved programs around without installing and uninstalling them, there's likely a bunch of crossover references in the registry. If all your apps came with the machine you may be better off to wipe and start over.

Click to expand...

Thanks Miles, I'm not to computer savvy thats what got me into this mess ,I have the original disks for dell restore and windows restore But how do I perform a Wipe and after the Wipe do the dell restore disks go in first then the system disk with windows on it?

Every one is a little bit different. I've never owned a Dell.

I've found this site. How good the info is I don't know:

How To Perform A Dell System Restore

or you can try
Welcome to www.dell.com