Accessing the "dark matter" on hard drive??

My C drive is using 65G of disc space and this is making the computer very
slow and unresponsive...but when I look at the individual folders I can only
find 25G of content...I want to get rid of unnecessary stuff but how do I get
to all the "dark matter" that's occupying 40G of hard drive space? I tried
unhiding files but that doesn't do it. I had a crash and did a system
restore and now cannot find a lot of music and photo files that I once had.
Could it be that this is hidden away somewhere on my C drive? If so, how do
I get to it to delete the junk?

When unhiding the files make sure that you also have the Hide Protected
Operating System files unchecked.
It is possible that the data is stored as .chk files. If your data is in
..chk files it might be possible to recover it though the odds are not too
good.

"Sidewinder_59" wrote:

My C drive is using 65G of disc space and this is making the computer very
slow and unresponsive...but when I look at the individual folders I can only
find 25G of content...I want to get rid of unnecessary stuff but how do I get
to all the "dark matter" that's occupying 40G of hard drive space? I tried
unhiding files but that doesn't do it. I had a crash and did a system
restore and now cannot find a lot of music and photo files that I once had.
Could it be that this is hidden away somewhere on my C drive? If so, how do
I get to it to delete the junk?

Sidewinder_59 wrote:
My C drive is using 65G of disc space and this is making the computer very
slow and unresponsive...

Why would using space make the computer "slow and unresponsive"? That's
what disks are for, to be used. Your comment implies that it is OK to
have large disks, as long as they are not used "too much".

Aside from other comments/responses you have, keep in mind that stuff
in your Recycle Bin still occupies the original space.

Originally Posted by Sidewinder_59

My C drive is using 65G of disc space and this is making the computer very
slow and unresponsive...but when I look at the individual folders I can only
find 25G of content...I want to get rid of unnecessary stuff but how do I get
to all the "dark matter" that's occupying 40G of hard drive space? I tried
unhiding files but that doesn't do it. I had a crash and did a system
restore and now cannot find a lot of music and photo files that I once had.
Could it be that this is hidden away somewhere on my C drive? If so, how do
I get to it to delete the junk?

This utility is heard to be useful to determine whats taking up space.
http://www.win.tue.nl/sequoiaview/
If ur system is unresponsive you should try scanning for spyware and stuff, and you might also run a disk cleanup and see if the drive is fragmented, if so defrag the drive. Here's alink on cleaning up
http://pcworld.about.com/magazine/2007p162id97442.htm