alec_t,
Surprised no one's posted (I
think my machine is still working
).
First, determine if your HardDrive is set up for FAT or NTFS file handling. For an XP machine you can
only compress the data if the file system is NTFS. Unless you bought it NTFS, or converted it yourself, it's most likely FAT.
If NTFS, compress away.
What you gain is storage space. You will, however, experience a slow down in file retrieval due to the OS's need to de-compress the file(s) before you can use them.
And the whole compression process can be quite lengthy, depending on how much data you have.
Back when I consulted, I generally recommended
against compression of the disk data (as opposed to "zipping" individual file/folder(s) for emailing, posting, etc., and instead suggested additional storage.
External drives have gotten so cheap (we (Apple) used to sell, in 1984, a 5MB (YES,
MB) drive for, retail, $5,000USD!) that's its really easier and more convenient to just slap on an external drive (1TB= <$100), get whatever there is you rarely use on your current drive
off onto the new drive, CHKDSK and defrag the old one and be on your way.
This might answer additional questions:
https://www.microsoft.com/resources...en-us/ff_file_compress_overview.mspx?mfr=true
CBB