BASIC DISK SPACE QUESTION - READ WHEN YOU HAVE TIME

I can't spend a lot of time as I have to catch an airplane in just a little while, but YES, a lot of small files will most definitely slow your computer down as I doubt you have spent much time keeping your hard drive as neat as you have the rest of your house I bet. And it ends up being one the major reasons for having to visit the computer shop. Because small files tend to get corrupted easily.
I'm not entirely as positive as you are that you are without any malware infections unless you have included my recommendations of the other day into your regimen of maintenance on your computer. If you have GREAT, but if not, I would not trust your conclusions about your computer being clean of malware because I simply do not trust any other products to clean a system other then those I have told you about.

Now getting back to your original ( this thread ) comment, you need to defrag the hard drive with a product like Auslogics Disk Defrag ( Free ). Very basic but also VERY FAST comparatively speaking. It doesn't do the fancy stuff but it does everything else just fine. I'm guessing you have very little experience with doing defrags and if your first time on this computer, you will have a very long process in front of you due to all the small files but this is like brushing your teeth, everyone needs to do it on a very regular basis and the more small files the more it needs to be done if you want to keep your small files and the computer out of the shop. This will not be a quick excersise if never previously done by this routine and should be done at least once every two days for a week until you have more confidence in its use and what you see.. Once you have COMPLETELY defragged the drive, then you can with some confidence write these files to CD/DVD for safe keeping. Sooner or later you will fill up your hard drive with these miscellenous files so they need to be removed and stored else you run the risk of corrupting the hard drive and having to visit the shop again. Sounds just like a tooth ache doesn't it.

So get the program, install it, and run the thing at least twice before anything else. Be prepared for a long process as I doubt you have done anything like this in a while. The second time around will be much faster or should be at least.
Once accomplished write your pictures and videos to CD/DVD and get them off the hard drive. Don't let the CD/DVDwrting program delete the files for you because you should not trust the created CD/DVD until you have viewed it yourself outside the influence of the CD/DVDwriting program. Once the created CD/DVD is trusted, then remove those files from hard drive ( leaning your hard drive down some ). Then defrag again.
The defrag program will give you some idea in a relative way of how much is on your system.
Since your knowledge level is basic, this is as far as I will go at the moment. Get these things done as soon as possible for the sake of your hard drive and the well-being of your files...

Take care Colleen

Reb