Try going into "My Computer" right click on the drive select "properties". On the first tab hit the "disk cleanup" button. On the second tab ("Tools") check the disk for errors. You may have to reformat the drive if you can't recover the space.

I've done that as well but it didn't help.

You won't recover all your disk space unless and until you empty the Recycle Bin. You may have got rid of the "big" files (Those that can't fit in the Recycle Bin) but all the smaller files you "deleted" are still in the Recycle Bin until you empty it. Double click on the Recycle Bin icon on your desktop to see what's in it. You can either delete files selectively from there, restore them to where they were or empty the whole thing. Emptying will free up the disk space.

Tip: There are several third party replacements for the Recycle Bin. They offer a level of safety from accidently deleting files. We've all in a moment of not thinking "deleted" files we shouldn't have only to wish the next day we didn't. To protect me from myself, I set up a folder called 'junk' on each drive. Files I think I don't want I move there and they usually stay there a week or so. Once disk space gets low and when I'm actually paying attention, I go to the junk folder, give the contents a scan to be SURE I don't want of the files there then use a wipe utility which overwrites the file clusters with zeros and ones.

You are aware files are NEVER truly deleted. They only get written over. A "deleted" file in Windows speak only has the clusters used flagged as deleted which tells Windows it is OK to reclaim the clusters and use them for something else. This is why so-called undelete applications work. They simply look for the first cluster a "deleted" file was in, turn off the "delete" flag, check the file allocation table to see which clusters were used, then put Humpty Dumpty back together again. How successful the process is depends on if or not some of a file's clusters were already reused.

Go to internet explorer properties and delete all temporary internet files.
Go to system restore and save only the last recovery point, it recovers me 2,7 GB yesterday!!!
Go to Windows/temp and delete all the files, there are only temporary files.
Go to Windows/prefetch and delete all the files.

You can recover a lot of space that way.

Josaver.

In addition to what BillyBoy has written, The restore feature can consume several gig, but usually has a limit set. Use the second tab of the disk cleanup dialog to remove all but the most recent - or go to the system dialog in control panel and turn system restore off, even temporarily, as this will remove all such files.

Running a disk check in XP should require a reboot if you select fix files. Don't forget that a lot of apps collect all sorts of files &/or junk, depending on your point of view, particularly anything that connects to the internet. DO a search based on file size (I like the file finder that comes with the free edition of powerdesk - real jewel comparred to the winxp search).

There are quite a few windows utilities that might help, but don't know of a real replacement to just looking around your hard drive in windows explorer. Could have memory dump files in your winxp folder, prefetch was mentioned, sometimes files hang around in the internet explorer cache, even though you emptied it. Programs like Norton often save undo files, and these can get quite large in number.

And, shouldn't forget a good virus scan including looking for trojans... You could find you're not the only one using your system.

We had the same problem. Delete files but the space is not recovered. Eventually have to reformat the hard drive. Doing a normal reformat, drive complains that there are files in use, even though there are no files showing. Must use the manage function of XP to overide the complaint, and format the drive anyway.

Found the cause of the problem. Have Norton Utilities installed. For some reason, the protected trash bin was not releasing the space on delete. Removed Norton Utilities from our machine and the problem went away. Hope this helps.