Acer Aspire V showing very little free GB - please help me!

moggie · 23 Aug 2017

I have had this laptop (Win10) for about 6 months and only use it for emails and storing my photos - I have about 1000 emails stored without attachments in Thunderbird and 950 photos. No videos or music stored yet...........

I keep getting a message to the affect that my free space is very low. I am elderly and do not quite understand but I went into 'my pc' and it says '5 gb free out of 93gb'! When I had occasion to look a couple of months ago it said 40gb free.

Someone told me to look in C drive and see if there were any large files but I did not know how to do this - something about cmd box - I am lost and wary of doing anything complicated.

Why has it suddenly got to this state? I have done nothing unusual in the last few months except twice the laptop slowed right down and kept freezing recently and I tried to restore it to a few days earlier and it took an hour before it finally worked but said something like ' did not restore all files' however it did cure my problem and the laptop speeded up and was ok - I had to do this twice.

Does it matter I only have 5gb free and will my laptop stop at some time? What, in simple terms can I do please? At the time of the last freeze and attempt to restore I lost my Avast and had to repair it if that means anything.

Help anyone and thank you.

bro67 · 23 Aug 2017

A thousand emails on the computer, move them back to the server and set your email program to not store them on the computer. Move photos to a external drive.

With that much stored on your computer, no wonder why you are running out of space.

I keep everything on a Synology NAS on our home network and can access that data any time, along with keeping another copy on a iCloud drive. Hardly anything gets stored on our machines, since it gets lost, you are sol if you need that information.

I would also do a Disk Cleanup and CCleaner to get rid of other stuff taking up space. If you have Hibernate enabled, disable it in Command with powercfg /hibernate off.

FrillyBits · 23 Aug 2017

I am no expert but to help others to help you a scrrenshot of what is hogging all free space can help

• Download and install TreeSize Free
TreeSize Free - Quickly Scan Directory Sizes and Find Space Hogs

• Launch TreeSize and in the Menu go to Scan > Select Directory > OS (C: )
• If asked, select Restart as Administrator

• Resize the columns to clearly show names and sizes. Here is a link to the tutorial of how to manually do this in Windows Explorer and the same method can be used in TreeSize (There is no automatic resize option in Treesize)
Size All Columns to Fit for Folder in Windows 10 Windows 10 Customization Tutorials

• If you need further help with TreeSize there is an online manual
JAM Software - TreeSize Free - Online Manual

• Take a screenshot of TreeSize, scroll down and take more screenshots if there is more information below
Take Screenshot in Windows 10 Windows 10 General Tips Tutorials

• Attach the screenshots to your next post
How to Upload and Post Screenshots and Files at Ten Forums Windows 10 Tutorials

I haven't asked you to expand the TreeSize direcories at this time because that would create a lot of items and would need many, many screenshots but a member might ask you to use TreeSize again and expand some directories to see what is inside

Good luck :)

bro67 · 23 Aug 2017

Tree Size and WinDirstat are two very good programs. I send people over to Majorgeeks, since they scan files that they host out of their catalog and from author sites for any installers that could load crapware.

Marko1401 · 24 Aug 2017

Use could storage for your photos. Any will do. Most probably you use a small scale SSD for your computer.
Or - you could invest in another HDD provided your laptop can fit two drives.

However. I recommend you use could storage. Everything I have, that's important to me is in the could (And I code apps.)

bro67 · 24 Aug 2017

Marko1401 said:

Use could storage for your photos. Any will do. Most probably you use a small scale SSD for your computer.
Or - you could invest in another HDD provided your laptop can fit two drives.
However. I recommend you use could storage. Everything I have, that's important to me is in the could (And I code apps.)

The OP has a Netbook. I am surprised that it could even run Windows 10. You cannot even buy Netbooks anymore. Time for the OP to upgrade to a real laptop or convertible if they want a tablet and laptop.

Marko1401 · 24 Aug 2017

bro67 said:

The OP has a Netbook. I am surprised that it could even run Windows 10. You cannot even buy Netbooks anymore. Time for the OP to upgrade to a real laptop or convertible if they want a tablet and laptop.

Like reading about my mother.
Netbooks died over 3-4 years ago with ultrabooks coming along.
I agree. Not to ditch the netbook, fit another OS there - Linux mint or Chrome Os.

If the user is not very techy then Chrome OS it is, for a start.

AndreTen · 24 Aug 2017

bro67 said:

The OP has a Netbook. I am surprised that it could even run Windows 10. You cannot even buy Netbooks anymore. Time for the OP to upgrade to a real laptop or convertible if they want a tablet and laptop.

Marko1401 said:

Like reading about my mother.
Netbooks died over 3-4 years ago with ultrabooks coming along.
I agree. Not to ditch the netbook, fit another OS there - Linux mint or Chrome Os.

If the user is not very techy then Chrome OS it is, for a start.

User specs and thread title don't match, so I suspect, that Tread title is correct (Aspire V). It's laptop (number of models, so we don't know nothing...), not netbook.
@moggie, FrillyBits's advice is a good start. Check what's on this machine ... And if you have other drives (D: or something) you can move some of the files over.

moggie · 24 Aug 2017

Thanks for info so far. I may have mislead you about the model I have. I looked in Acer details and it says it is Acer Aspire V3 - 371. SNID 44106331266 and it came with Win 10 64 bit installed if that means anything.
I have done a few things you say but it now shows 10gb free from 92gb.
When I look in 'this pc' it just shows Acer C drive with these figures and no other drives at all.
As a non techy that is all I understand.
I do have a 32gb memory stick which is unused. Should I put all my photos and emails that I mentioned earlier on to this?
It said in the user book I got with the laptop/netbook!? that there is Acer Cloud but I cannot find it so do not know how to use it. I use Bing as my search engine and I have google also - so is cloud anything to do with these.

Thank you everyone for you help - but am still puzzled!

spunk · 24 Aug 2017

The Aspire V is not a Netbook.
Press the Windows key+X and choose Disk Management. Please attach a screenshot of the lower half of this window in your next post. If there is Unallocated Space, you can resize your C: drive.
Meanwhile You can Cut and Paste your Pictures, Music, Documents into your Memory Stick, until you can get an External USB HDD.