Hard drive of your computer is a permanent storage device. All the data stored on the hard drive is non-volatile. Somehow some times we have a need to clean up our hard disk. To perform the hard disk cleaning we will discuss a few tips for you to use. One important aspect is that we are not only cleaning up the hard drive, we are freeing the space in the hard drive too.

To determine how much space is available on your hard disk you can open 'My computer' in Windows XP. Then single click on any local drive will show the details of local drive. Details include the total size of the local drive, used and free space of the drive. Before cleaning up anything, make sure that you don't have a need for this later; if you need it later, you may just make sure you still have the original disk for the future installation.

When you delete a program icon from your desktop it doesn't mean that you are uninstalling the software completely from your computer. It only deletes the shortcut menu from your computer's desktop.

Some programs that you installed on your computer may have their own uninstallers. If you want to see if there is an uninstaller for a software available with it, click on the start menu located at the left bottom corner of you screen. Now select "All Programs" option. Then select the program to see if it has an uninstaller with it. If you find the uninstaller then you can uninstall your required software from here to clean up your hard disk. If there is no other option for uninstall then follow the method described below.

A most common way to remove programs is to click the, start button. Once this is done, you can select the Control Panel. From the control panel, you can select either Add or Remove programs. After the loading of the Window you will be able to see all the programs installed on your computer. Just click on the program which you want to uninstall then click on the Change/Remove button.

When we delete any file or folder from the computer it still store it in the recycle bin until you empty the recycle bin. If you are considering deleting photos, you may want to save them first to either an USB drive or a DVD. Then after deleting the files from the computer you should empty the recycle bin in order to free the space from your computer.

You should use a registry cleaner in order to find the registry files that are stored on your computer and not have those that are not worth any more. Running your disk cleanup will assist you to clean out your temporary folder. After this is performed the Disk fragmentation to clean up the hard disk is done. Then restart your computer to evaluate if there is free space available on the local drive.

These are some methods which are used to clean up the hard disk. You can perform these in order to free the space from your computer.

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