[bluevin123]

Hi,

Just copied all my files (121 GB), music, pics, ebooks etc onto my external hard drive from my internal C drive. I defraged the external drive and unpluged it knowing thats a backup in case I had major probs with my PC.
The thing is I want to leave all what I copied on the C drive too,so I have it twice. On this 250 GB hard drive I have the 121 GB and 42GB of stuff called C DRIVE FILES, COMPONENTS, LOGS 3, PLUGINS, PROGRAM FILES, USERS, AND WINDOWS.
Do you know if I need all these files,or are they essential. Is it possible to find out what ones I need and get rid of?
Hope you can help.
Vinnie.

[philthomas]

If you are trying to create a back up of your main Hard Drive, in case of Hard Drive failure, then this is not really the correct way to go about it, as you would not be able to restore your system files etc., by just copying them back.
The best way is to use a program like Acronis True Image, which creates a compreseed image (file) of the entire drive, which can then be restored, if the worst happens.

Let us know exactly what you are trying to achieve and we can better advise you.

[bluevin123]

HI,
Thanks for your reply.
I just want to know if some of that 42GB of stuff can be deleted but suppose its hard to tell without seeing the files.
When I had XP I used to reboot from the master disks about twice a year so it was clean and tidy. But when I got Vista a year ago it the PC didnt come with a boot disk,and it has been slowing up lately.
SoI got rid rid of some programs I didnt need,defragged it, and done various scans and it seems better,but want to know if I can do anything with that 42GB,or just leave it.It seems quite a lot though do you not think.Then once its all ok,I will take an image of it using one of the programs you mentioned.
Does that seem ok.
Thanks.
Vinnie.

[philthomas]

OK ..... it's hard, as you say, to advise, without viewing the files.
Although Vista does use up a fair bit of Disk space .......... my Windows folder for example is 12.5gb .... also hidden files, in Vista, account for a fair amount of space, such as pagefile.sys, hiberfile.sys and System Volume information.
System Restore points can occupy 12% of your HDD space, so you may gain some space back if you switch this off and then back on again ... this will effectively flush the old points out.

The Users folder will contain much of your personal data, such as Documents, Music, Pictures, Email etc., so there may be stuff here you can delete, but only you can decide on which obviously.

You may want to consider grabbing a Vista installation disk ..... OEM disks can be had on Amazon or Ebuyer at reasonable cost. Sooner or later you will be stumped without one and with Recovery disks/partitions, your only option quite often is a full reinstall, losing all data.

[bluevin123]

Hi philthomas

Thanks very much,for your very informative answer,I will try the different options that you described.
Will let you know how it goes.
Cheers,
Vinnie.