Local Disk (C:)

[Jill on the A272]

The bar on this is showing red instead of green. (It also says 5.71GB free of 66.1 GB). What does this mean please and should I be worried?

[WendyPusey]

It means it is almost full. Perhaps it's time to have a clear out or buy an external drive to transfer some of your stuff onto.

[Jill on the A272]

Thanks Wendy, just been deleting some unwanted pictures - I share this laptop with son #1, I think it may be clogged up with his stuff rather than mine! I shall have to have a word with him once I've done my half of the spring cleaning

[TrevorFranklin]

For a computer to work effectively, you need at least 20% of the hard drive space free
You really neeed to consider removing unused programmes or archiving to CDs old documents/images that you never use.
Otherwise you will start finding that you will be getting errors when using the PC

An external Drive is around £40 these days and would be a good investment to move data and images across to.
You should also run something like CCleaner to remove old temporary files that may be on the drive after applications were installed or old temporary Internet files.
These all take up space

[Guy]

You have no need to worry at all you have plenty of space left many computers have never had 5 gigabit of hard drive space let alone had over 5 gig spare.

Ignore any warnings until the space drops below 500mb.
Cheers
Guy

[Jill on the A272]

Thankyou gentlemen, I've had an initial discussion with my son who it turns out has a large amount of photos, just 5 minutes spent deleting unwanted ones has made a difference, and we will be talking about better managing when he's back on day shifts.

[lorry53]

You should also run something like CCleaner to remove old temporary files that may be on the drive after applications were installed or old temporary Internet files.
These all take up space

ITA, this is a very useful utility.

[col48]

I'd be tempted to make a couple of directories directly under c:\ called (say) Jill and Son and keep all individual files there and give said son a space limit!
Or [get him]/[tell him to get himself] a new laptop and get his stuff off yours!