PC issues: memory leaks, viruses, and junk files... help!

Look, I honestly don't know the first thing about computers. I tried looking for a category that fits my mess, but since I have a bunch of different issues, I figured I'd just start a new thread here. 😁
I know some of this is gonna sound ridiculous, but I really need some help.
Basically, I haven't had anyone touch my system for maybe four years—not that it crashed or anything. But this laptop is a total disaster zone because I lent it out to a few people for a year. I tried deleting some programs, but now I'm paranoid I'll accidentally nuked something vital. What’s the move to clean this thing up without breaking everything? How am I supposed to know if I'm deleting a movie player or some critical Windows component Windows O?

Second thing—way back when, I moved some photos and music into that protected partition used during system recovery... and it was fine at first. But then, eventually, all my photos just vanished. I don't know if a virus ate them or what, but the music is still there. Is there any way to get those pictures back? Also, the system keeps insisting that partition is full when it definitely isn't -_- any ideas?

Thirdly, my antivirus is also from like four years ago, right after I had the system reinstalled. It's Avira. Should I ditch it for something else or is this old thing actually doing its job?

Thanks 😁

Jonathan Morales3 said:Look, I honestly don't know the first thing about computers. I tried looking for a category that fits my mess, but since I have a bunch of different issues, I figured I'd just start a new thread here. 😁
I know some of this is gonna sound ridiculous, but I really need some help.
Basically, I haven't had anyone touch my system for maybe four years—not that it crashed or anything. But this laptop is a total disaster zone because I lent it out to a few people for a year. I tried deleting some programs, but now I'm paranoid I'll accidentally nuked something vital. What’s the move to clean this thing up without breaking everything? How am I supposed to know if I'm deleting a movie player or some critical Windows component Windows O?

Second thing—way back when, I moved some photos and music into that protected partition used during system recovery... and it was fine at first. But then, eventually, all my photos just vanished. I don't know if a virus ate them or what, but the music is still there. Is there any way to get those pictures back? Also, the system keeps insisting that partition is full when it definitely isn't -_- any ideas?

Thirdly, my antivirus is also from like four years ago, right after I had the system reinstalled. It's Avira. Should I ditch it for something else or is this old thing actually doing its job?

Thanks 😁

The bolded part directly addresses your concern.
Given everything you've described, especially regarding that bolded point... honestly, it might be best to hand it over to a professional who knows their way around a motherboard. It would be much safer to have someone pull your important files off and then just perform a clean format on the machine.

☕

Joe. You really saved my skin. Seriously, thanks. How did I not think of that sooner??? 🙏
-_-
I don't want to wreck the whole system—my laptop actually runs fine and isn't lagging or anything—it just drives me nuts how messy everything is. Plus, some jerk deleted my photos. And honestly? I've got no clue if this antivirus is even doing its job. 🎉

Jonathan Morales3 said:Joe. You really saved my skin. Seriously, thanks. How did I not think of that sooner??? 🙏
-_-
I don't want to wreck the whole system—my laptop actually runs fine and isn't lagging or anything—it just drives me nuts how messy everything is. Plus, some jerk deleted my photos. And honestly? I've got no clue if this antivirus is even doing its job. 🎉

It’s always a lovely feeling when I try to offer a hand and someone responds by being sarcastically condescending toward me.

The idea that you don't want to break your system, yet you want to "tidy it up," while simultaneously claiming it isn't infected or slow, but then saying "malware" ate your photos and you aren't sure if your antivirus works... well, it's a bit of a contradictory puzzle, isn't it?
From my own perspective, and certainly from what experience has taught me, performing a clean install is the only way to truly ensure a PC is 100% purged, which is why that was my suggestion.

Once more, though I'm not quite sure why I'm bothering, I will suggest that you take it to a professional who actually knows their stuff because...

...if your goal is to wipe out that "malware," you're going to need a significant amount of technical expertise—something you explicitly mentioned you lack.

...and if you decide to go the route of a full format, we end up right back at the fact that you don't have the technical know-how.

As for this "clutter" issue, I'm not sure how else to put it besides... the simple magic of copy-paste or moving files to a different folder.

If you're looking for someone to tell you, "Hey, just click this and that and you'll be done in five minutes," well, I'm not that person, because I have no interest in feeding people false hope.

By the way... there isn't an antivirus in the entire world that can protect a computer from its greatest vulnerability: its owner.

p.s.
A little bit of gratitude might go a long way in your life.

Best,

You hit the nail on the head right out of the gate... Anyway, sorry for the sarcasm—blame it on my hormones, I guess. 😁 some monster is taking over my personality... honestly, trying to understand women is a losing game.

Found the photos, yay. But now I’m stuck wondering if I should move them back to the D: drive or whatever... I named the folder ARCHIVE 😁 because seeing nothing but RECYCLE BIN and System Volume Information made me go pale... and by pale, I mean those folders are just haunting me. They won't delete. Now my archive is totally empty... except for those two weirdos.

I moved everything to my desktop, but I feel like you've totally messed with my head—now I'm paranoid the whole system is gonna crash out of nowhere and wipe everything clean 😁

Thanks, though (see? there's a shred of gratitude left in me) 🙂

Jonathan Morales3 said:You hit the nail on the head right out of the gate... Anyway, sorry for the sarcasm—blame it on my hormones, I guess. 😁 some monster is taking over my personality... honestly, trying to understand women is a losing game.

Found the photos, yay. But now I’m stuck wondering if I should move them back to the D: drive or whatever... I named the folder ARCHIVE 😁 because seeing nothing but RECYCLE BIN and System Volume Information made me go pale... and by pale, I mean those folders are just haunting me. They won't delete. Now my archive is totally empty... except for those two weirdos.

I moved everything to my desktop, but I feel like you've totally messed with my head—now I'm paranoid the whole system is gonna crash out of nowhere and wipe everything clean 😁

Thanks, though (see? there's a shred of gratitude left in me) 🙂

Having survived one failed marriage and having a second one as a backup option, I know exactly what PMS feels like... 👍 so consider yourself forgiven 🙂

If I've interpreted you correctly, you're working with two partitions—one is your C: drive where the operating system lives, and the other is your D: drive
You are more than welcome to move those photos over to the D: drive, though if I were in your shoes, I’d probably back them up to a thumb drive, an external hard drive, or even better yet, something like Dropbox or Google Drive, so they're always right there whenever you need them without causing any headaches.

Now, I'm not entirely sure if I followed your logic perfectly, since communicating like this is a bit like flying blind.

You might want to grab CCleaner and Malwarebytes while you're at it... Since your system is about four years old now, using CCleaner should help clear out all that accumulated junk—it’ll definitely free up some much-needed space. Once that's done, just run a scan with the other one to see if there's any actual garbage hiding in the system.

Regarding those washed-out icons on the Disk Archive, those are system files. Don't touch them under any circumstances. One points to where deleted stuff goes and the other holds the partition data. You mess with that and you might end up wiping the entire drive, every single partition... that's why they hide it.

I have zero clue what I just did... haha. I've had CCleaner for ages but finally actually fired it up—ran the analysis, hit "Run Cleaner," and now everything is just... deleting. The thing is, it’s taking forever on my machine.
Is it safe to dive into the registry settings too and do the same thing, or is that asking for trouble?

Thanks a ton y'all 😁

You could probably pull that off too...