Duplicate C Drive Files

Computer Help and Discussions Software
1

Hi Everyone.

I wonder if you might be able to help me,

The other day, my dell inspiron 6400 laptop decided not to turn on anymore,

I took it to a PC store to get them to retreive all my data which thankfully they did, as well as reinstalling Windows XP afresh.

They gave the laptop back to me, and told me all my retreived data (all the stuff in 'My Documents' and the C Drive) was in a folder on my desktop, which it was.

After rebuilding the settings for my pc (downloading Firefox, reinstalling software etc) for a while, I decided to copy the 'my documents' folder (in the retreived data folder on my desktop) to My Documents on my newly restored version of Windows XP, in an effort to get everything in its right place.

Halfway through this copying process, a window popped up saying that space on my C drive was getting critically low, almost to the point where damage may be caused. . . How has that happened the pc had just been wiped?! I said to myself.

So there was about 1% of remaining space on my 70GB hard drive. I decided to try and compress the files on there, and now i have 5.43GB of free space.

A friend informed me that maybe i've duplicated what was already on the C drive. If this is the case, is there some way to delete duplicate files on the C drive?

Also, is there some way you can view what is on the C drive, so you know what you are deleting?

I've tried backing up all the important stuff on my pc to a dvd before i do anything but due to files being shared with other users on my pc, i am unable to.

As you may have guessed, i am not that clued up when it comes to PC operating systems, i really am stuck here and would greatly appreciate any pointers.

Thanks in advance for any help,

Simon

2

Hi Simon, and welcome to the forum.

That sounds like a really thorny problem. Deleting duplicate files just isn't very straightforward. A lot of software has similar files to other software. Windows also has duplicate files in various places. Deleting duplicate files would delete a lot of stuff that you just can't delete.

Unless I'm reading it wrong, your entire C: drive was in that folder, not just your "My Documents" folder.

I'm not sure if you can just delete "My Documents" or not. Maybe one of the guys knows this. That would be the simple solution. You could then look inside that folder to see if there's a seperate "My Documents" folder to replace it.

If that's not possible, I think your best, and possibly your only option, would be to reinstall your operating system again and carefully check through the backup folder before copying anything from it to your C: drive.

If you have the Windows disks, or a Recovery Partition, you could do this yourself after first looking through that folder for stuff you need to keep, or hopefully your above mentioned backup will have all your important data.

Maybe if you explain back at the shop what's happened, they might be able to help you a bit more constructively. I think they could have been more helpful and informative in this situation.

If any of the other guys on here can confirm the "My Documents" delete possibility, or have a better idea, I'm sure they'll jump in, but I can't think of any other straightforward way to rectify your situation.

3

Thanks for the informative reply Dennis.

Maybe the best thing for me to do is get 'My Documents' backed up, and completely wipe my pc before reinstalling window again. At least this way i'll know where i am.

Or is this a bit drastic?!

Simon

ps I'm guessing he best way to continually back up your data is to buy an external hard drive, what's your view of the pros and cons of this and backing up using online server?

Cheers

4

I certainly agree with Dennis that the shop should have been a bit more helpful with this than they were.

If taking it back and asking them to put it right is not an option for you, then reinstalling may be your best option after backing up your 'my docs' folder. May be a good idea to double check that you are just backing 'my docs' up and nothing else :)

An external drive is a good way to go, they are cheap and they are usually just the plug and go type. There are quite a few good free backup programs which you can (once set up) just press a button and all your selected files and pictures etc are backup up in a couple of minutes.

I don't have any personal experience of using an online server to do this.

5

Hi Simon.

Reinstalling Windows could be called "a bit drastic" in some circumstances, but in your case, provided you aren't losing any irreplaceable stuff, I think a "clean" start would be a good way to go.

That's providing one of the other guys on here doesn't have a more straightforward solution.

Do you have Service Pack 3 installed yet? I'm guessing that the reinstall the store did for you may be XP with SP2.

If no, this could be a good time to do it, to save on the pain in the backside Windows Updates you'll have to replace if you reinstall. You could do that online, or download an SP3 Image File which you burn directly to CD and then it auto runs to install SP3. Personally, I prefer the SP3 on CD, which takes out the inherent risks of On-Line installs, and gives you a SP3 back-up CD.

SP3 Image File:

Once you do get this sorted, you can avoid a recurrence of this situation by making an Image Back-Up of your entire System Drive.

A few of us on here use a free software called Macrium Reflect to do just that. Once you have this Back-Up Image of your entire C: drive on either a partition, an external drive, or DVDs, then any disasters can be overcome by installing the Back-Up Image to your hard drive, or another hard drive if you have a drive failure.

Macrium Reflect:

Obviously, you can get all the help and advice you need on here if you use Macrium and have any queries.

I've no experience of On-Line back-ups, so can't really comment on that, but I think I would prefer the back-up where I could get to it in the event of an OS or HD failure.

You can also use a freeware application called Karens Replicator to regularly back-up your data to another partition or drive etc.

Karens Replicator:

Automatically backup files, directories, even entire drives! Karen's Replicator copies selected files from one drive/folder to another. Source and Destination folders can reside anywhere on your network.

Options include repeated copies at intervals as short as a few minutes, or as long as several months, copy only files that have changed, and the replication of folder and file deletions.

I've never tried backing up a drive with this program as Macrium does the job well.

There are other back-up programs, but I can only recommend the one I use.

The back-up suggestions above I would definitely look at, and even if you could just delete the "My Documents" folder, maybe a clean start would still be a good way to go.

Hope this helps Simon, but come back if you need anything further.

EDIT: Hazel just pipped me with her post, which explains any similarities.

6

Guys, thank you so much for your help on this, i'm in the middle of setting up a business and without this kind of support, a crashed pc would probably sink me.

Dennis - Hopefully i'm doing this right, I'm downloading the SP3 right now and will burn it on to a CD.

Then i'll back up 'my documents' to an external hard drive, before totally wiping my PC clean (whats the best way to do this by the way?)

Then i'll reinstall windows XP using the disc with SP3 on it, before loading my documents back on from the external hard drive.

When i do this, will 'my documents' automatically go back into 'my documents', or will it be in a folder on the desktop like it was last time, needing to be transferred? Avoiding a repeat of this would be good!

Also, sorry to be dim, but what does "Back-Up Image" mean?

The term 'back-up' is pretty new to me (learning the hard way!) let alone Back-up Image of C: drive...

Hazel - I don't think going back to the store will be an option, i heard today that this particular chain of PC stores is about to go into administration!

Thanks again for helping me

7

Hi Simon,

I'll explain all about Back-Up Images after we get your most pressing problem sorted out first, which is getting your C: Drive back to normal.

And to clarify, sadly the SP3 CD does not include the XP Operating System. It's a Windows Update, a Service Pack only. My fault, I didn't explain it clearly enough. If you do have to reinstall Windows, it's worth having an SP3 CD to install after the Windows reinstall, to save having to download and install a shed load of Security Updates from Microsoft afterwards.

Once downloaded, you need the right software to burn an Image (ISO) file to a CD. Any of these free programs will do that. Ashampoo is particularly good.

Ashampoo Burning Studio Free, ImgBurn, DeepBurner Free.

To reinstall Windows, you'll either have a trip back to the shop, which you say may not be an option, or you'll need the original Windows Installation CDs, or for your PC to have a "Recovery Partition", which will be about 6gb in size, and is usually tagged D:.

If you have one, it's accessible from Start\All Programs\PC Help and Tools\System Recovery, or similar. And also via pressing the F10 key repeatedly when booting. (This is on my PC, yours may be the same.)

t495_Recovery.jpg

However, I've been doing a bit of research, and it may not be necessary to reinstall Windows again.

First of all, is it possible to either copy the folder the shop placed on your desktop to another drive, or have a look at what's in that folder, as you may find a copy of your original My Documents folder in there, and then just copy that to another drive? Once you have your stuff backed-up, then you can try the following.

When the shop reinstalled Windows, System Restore should have been running after the reinstall, and there should be a restore point made which will take your PC back to the same position it was in when you got it back. In other words, a newly installed Operating System with maybe the back-up folder on the desktop.

I have it from a good source, that with a professionall install of Windows, a System Restore point made at the time of install is common practice, so if there isn't one, I'd be very surprised, and we'll have to go to another option.

System Restore is accessed via Start\All Programs\PC Help and Tools\System Restore. Or, Start\Control Panel\Performance and Maintenance\System Restore link up in the left pane. Follow the "Restore My Computer To An Earlier Time" dialogue.

If this is successful, then you could install SP3, update Windows, and then replace all your My Documents stuff from the back-up.

Try this first, and then let us know how you get on. If this doesn't do the trick, then there are other options to explore.

8

Awesome, thanks Dennis.

I've ordered an external hard drive to back up my important stuff, when it's arrived i'll get tha data backed up and go through these motions.

I'll let you know when i've got some results.

Thanks again :)