Try to maintain at least 10 percent of the capacity of the drive as free space on your system (or C:) drive. The less free space available on your computer hard disk, the more likely files are to become fragmented. Software which creates large temporary files (such as graphics software) will quickly run out of room on a cramped hard disk. One method to regain lost space is to use remove temporary files that have been left behind on your disk.

Right click on the Internet Explorer icon, and choose properties. Make sure the General tab is selected and click Delete Files to remove the browser cache files from your computer. Many systems will be set with an inappropriately large cache limit. Choose the Settings button, next to the Delete Files button, to change the cache limit to a reasonable amount such as 25 Megabytes.

Users of Windows XP can employ the Disk Cleanup tool. From your start menu, choose Programs, System Tools, and then Disk Cleanup. This utility will automatically remove unused temporary files, and compress old files to save space.

Another method to free up room on your disks is to reduce the amount of space used by system restore. The default is to use 10% of your disk capacity to store backup copies of changed Windows system files. While this can be a great way to restore your computer to working order after making a mistake that renders your computer unbootable, it can also be a waste of resources. A recommended minimum would be 1000MB of system restore space on the C: drive, and 0% on the rest of your drives. Since Windows is normally installed on the C: drive, this will allow you to recover from failures, yet leave plenty of room for your data and projects on drive D: (if your hard drive is divided into partitions).