What happend to my disc space, and how to find it

[1Chris]

I had 7GB of Free Space left. I recorded a 2 hour audio file in Audacity (1.2GB) (C:\). I added tracks, exported it on another drive (F:\).

Did not save the original file on C:\

I now have 80MB of space left.

What happened? How can I find out where the space went?

[1Chris]

OK, went back and searched. Found 6GB in Audacity temp. I thought temp files would delete when I close the program.
Chris.

[Train]

Some times they do not get dumped. Which fairly common

[BipolarBill]

You should try CCleaner:

http://www.ccleaner.com/

Set it to delete:

Temporary Internet Files
Temp Files
CHKDSK fragment files
Windows Logs

It's pretty darned good. It finds Temp files for all sorts of programs. Those are the only items that you need to clean up. You will likely be surprised how much junk you have on your PC - likely hundreds of MB.

By the way - if you have that little space left on the drive, it's time to get a bigger drive. A drive that full is going to cause severe performance problems. As a good general rule, try to avoid filling a drive past 80%.

[1Chris]

Thank you, already have CCleaner. Use it all the time.
Chris.

[1Chris]

I want to get a bigger drive, but on this machine it takes a PATA. If I get a new drive, I want to get SATA.
*So that means I will have to get a new Motherboard, RAM, and a Hard Drive.
Oh, yea, Video Card is AGP, so maybe have to get a new Video Card also.
Chris.

*I know I can get a PCI to SATA but the good ones are to much, and the lower priced ones have problems in the reviews.

[Train]

Have a open PCI slot then use one of these.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816124003

2 internal and 2 external SATA ports.

or for 4 internal
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816102065

[BipolarBill]

I've used a Promise SATA card in a couple of PCs and they work.