How to Make Room on a Hard Drive
Hard drives are the primary data storage devices used in computers that contain the operating system, program files and other data files such as images, documents, video and music. When a drive reaches its capacity, it will run slower and there may not have room to load new data. Therefore, it is useful to remove unneeded files and programs to make room for new data.
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Instructions
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Copy media files, images and documents to a secondary hard drive and delete the originals. Open the folder for the secondary drive and drag the media files into the drive to copy them. After they have been copied, right-click on the original copy and choose "Delete." After you have gone through all of your media files and documents, right-click on the recycle bin and empty it. If you don't want to save certain files, delete them without copying them.
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Uninstall programs you no longer use. Click "Start," "Control Panel," "Add/Remove Programs," and then double-click any program in the list to begin the uninstall process.
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Run the disk cleanup tool to get rid of junk files. Click "Start," "My Programs," "Accessories," "System Tools" and then "Disk Cleanup."
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Run the disk defragmenter. From the same menu as the disk cleanup tool, select "Disk Defragmenter." Defragmenting can take several hours, so you may wish to begin the process before you go to sleep for the night.
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Tips & Warnings
Even if you have plenty of room on your main hard drive, it is useful to back up important files on a second hard drive in case the first drive fails. Documents can be backed up online by emailing them to yourself.
