The continuing computer saga...
 

This thread: http://forums.pelicanparts.com/off-topic-discussions/1049919-totally-bummed-computer-wont-boot-3.html
covered my computer melt down of this past week.
Today, I have the old hard drive in a new enclosure that will allow me to access it via a USB 3.0 cable, and it has its own power supply w/fan too.

My question is this, I've looked at the drive properties and it shows only 10.X GB open on a drive that is 980GB total (advertised as a 1TB drive).
I would like to use it as a backup drive for my pictures.

What is the easiest way to delete all the program files from the drive?
Do I just go into file manager and start clicking on a folder and hit delete?
Am I correct in thinking that after I delete all the program files I'll be able to run a disk cleanup on it like defrag to clean it all up nice and tidy?
I'm retired so it doesn't matter if it will take a while with the USB access, no one is holding a stop watch on me.
Is there a way to run the uninstaller program so I get all of the files associated with a program out?
I'm also thinking of deleting the recovery portion of the drive too to gain that space too.
Suggestions welcome.
Thanks in advance.

To be clear, there is data on it that you want to keep?

This is the big question.

disk
--------------------------------
Bunch of stuff you don't want
Some stuff that you do want
--------------------------------
vs
--------------------------------
nothing that you want/need
--------------------------------

The process is very different.

If there's nothing on the drive that you want/need to save, then just format the drive.

If it was me, depending upon what's going on, I might move everything that I want off, then format, then put stuff that I moved off back on.

But that will take longer than just deleting stuff that you don't want need.

If it was the only drive in a computer (like the situation that I'm currently in) and you've used almost all of 1TB, then my guess is that you've got <200GM of apps and OS and the rest is documents, videos, pictures, etc.... If that's the case and you're doing USB back and forth for 750GB, it will take forever vs just deleting stuff that you don't need. To really get things clean, you'd need to get windows setup to show you hidden files too.

Yes, it has stuff on it that I want to keep.
I've actually got two old drives. A 640GB and a 1TB. I've started to delete program files from the old 640 drive. It is slow but working, until I run into the 'need permission' stuff.
I may see how fast I can transfer files to the new computer so I can then format the old 640 and put the files back on it.

And yes, at one time, each of these drives was the only one in a computer. As the computers died or were killed by yours truly, they were moved to the next victim in line as a 'spare' slave.
Unfortunately the new computer doesn't have room inside for a slave, hence the Sabrent housing that I bought.

What I'm seeing.
582GB total 567GB used
Windows folder shows 22.9GB being taken up.

So copying files is slow, but, it will let me format the drive and get rid of all the files I can't just delete in file manager. Thanks for the help guys.