Bizarre hard drive space issue

[John Wright]

I'm running XP home w/ SP2 on a Dell Dimension 8100 w/ 768 MB of RAM. I
reformatted in January and my machine was running well for six weeks or so,
after which it started slowing down and acting buggy. It got progressively
worse until about two weeks ago, when I got an error message saying it
couldn't do whatever I was trying to do because the hard drive was almost
full. I couldn't imagine this could be true, as my drive is 80 GB and I
only have 35GB or so of data on it. The drive's properties also claimed it
was nearly full. I ran the disk cleanup thingy which only freed up a few
MB. I unhid system folders and checked the properties of each folder on
the drive (my C: drive, by the way) and they totalled about 35 MBs ("size
on disc"), just like I expected. Checked System restore, which was turned
off like I thought (which I assume means it's using no space). Checked
paging file, which is set at 2304 MB - a little high, but it's worked for
me fine in the past. Ran Checkdisk, which found nothing, and Scandisk,
which found and fixed one orphaned.tmp file with no appreciable impact.
Defragged, no help. Ran Seagate's Seatools (the drive is a Maxtor) and
Dell's 32-bit Diagnostics (which scans all the hardware in the machine for
malfunctions). Both gave me a clean bill of health. I cussed at it and
threatened to buy a Mac. Still no help. Compressed the data (via the
checkbox in the drive's properties) which crunched it down to about 58 GB
(from almost 75), and it's running better, but not all that well. Since
then the alleged space used has crept back up to about 61GB, and I haven't
added any data to speak of, just a few e-mails and a teeny-weeny Word file
or two, and the bugginess has gotten worse. If no one can help, I might
have to cuss at it again...

 

[CreateWindow]

Hi John,

Is your file system NTFS or FAT32? Just that you may have more stability
with NTFS.
To convert you give the command convert /FS:NTFS
Have you run the command chkdsk /r (repair)? Might help.... Do this first.

CreateWindow
http://mymessagetaker.com
Stop using those paper phone message pads
make the computer work for you.

 

[Guest]

I'd imagine youre problem(s) are related to the format.Sure xp didnt
reinstall
& make another partition.Try going to run,type:cmd In cmd typeiskPart In
DiskPart type:list disk Type:list volume Look for other/unknown
partitions,if
all is ok type:EXIT Type:CHKDSK C: /R Agree to restart,type:EXIT Restart
pc
Also,in hd properties,you should'nt have C: compressed

 

[Paul]

I'm running XP home w/ SP2 on a Dell Dimension 8100 w/ 768 MB of RAM. I
reformatted in January and my machine was running well for six weeks or so,
after which it started slowing down and acting buggy. It got progressively
worse until about two weeks ago, when I got an error message saying it
couldn't do whatever I was trying to do because the hard drive was almost
full. I couldn't imagine this could be true, as my drive is 80 GB and I
only have 35GB or so of data on it. The drive's properties also claimed it
was nearly full. I ran the disk cleanup thingy which only freed up a few
MB. I unhid system folders and checked the properties of each folder on
the drive (my C: drive, by the way) and they totalled about 35 MBs ("size
on disc"), just like I expected. Checked System restore, which was turned
off like I thought (which I assume means it's using no space). Checked
paging file, which is set at 2304 MB - a little high, but it's worked for
me fine in the past. Ran Checkdisk, which found nothing, and Scandisk,
which found and fixed one orphaned.tmp file with no appreciable impact.
Defragged, no help. Ran Seagate's Seatools (the drive is a Maxtor) and
Dell's 32-bit Diagnostics (which scans all the hardware in the machine for
malfunctions). Both gave me a clean bill of health. I cussed at it and
threatened to buy a Mac. Still no help. Compressed the data (via the
checkbox in the drive's properties) which crunched it down to about 58 GB
(from almost 75), and it's running better, but not all that well. Since
then the alleged space used has crept back up to about 61GB, and I haven't
added any data to speak of, just a few e-mails and a teeny-weeny Word file
or two, and the bugginess has gotten worse. If no one can help, I might
have to cuss at it again...

I have only a couple observations:

1) Trying to sidestep the issue, by compressing the drive, is a mistake.
You'll pay for it someday. (And uncompressing is not a viable option,
until you fix whatever the root problem is.) The savings you got
by compressing, suggest to me that the "invisible" consumer of space,
didn't get compressed, but your own files did.

2) If you expect to cure the problem, you are going to have to make a
list of what is running on the machine. Note, for example, the
problems this guy is having with System Restore points taking
snapshots of the pagefile.

http://groups.google.ca/group/micro..._frm/thread/b4a6b4193b03139f/5fa7fea61a7e8faf

I regret I'm not knowledgeable enough to help you, but if you try a
few Google searches, you might get some ideas. The hard part in any
search, is coming up with clever key words. The more you understand
about the tech (via its keywords), the more focused the search
becomes. I included the word "Dell" in these searches, because with
a Dell, comes the Dell collection of crapware. And a posting from
a Dell user is thus going to be more relevant to your condition.

http://groups.google.ca/groups/search?q=dell+disk+space+disappearing

http://groups.google.ca/groups/search?q=dell+disk+usage+restore+point

Dell has community forums, and that would be anther place to do a
search. If you haven't really added any software except what
Dell provided, then reports of disappearing disk space here,
should be very relevant to your problem.

http://search.dell.com/results.aspx?s=gen&c=ca&l=en&cs=&k=disk+space+disappearing&cat=sup

"Dell and Norton..."
http://www.dellcommunity.com/suppor...arddrive&message.id=49967&c=ca&l=en&cs=&s=gen

HTH,
Paul

 

[Guest]

I'm using NTFS, and chkdsk didn't help...

Hi John,

Is your file system NTFS or FAT32? Just that you may have more stability
with NTFS.
To convert you give the command convert /FS:NTFS
Have you run the command chkdsk /r (repair)? Might help.... Do this first.

CreateWindow
http://mymessagetaker.com
Stop using those paper phone message pads
make the computer work for you.

 

[Guest]

No parttitons, and chkdsk didn't help

I'd imagine youre problem(s) are related to the format.Sure xp didnt
reinstall
& make another partition.Try going to run,type:cmd In cmd typeiskPart In
DiskPart type:list disk Type:list volume Look for other/unknown
partitions,if
all is ok type:EXIT Type:CHKDSK C: /R Agree to restart,type:EXIT Restart
pc
Also,in hd properties,you should'nt have C: compressed

 

[Guest]

I only compressed the files as a temporary work-around, cause I didn't see
anu other option.

As far as listing what is running, should I post some sort of log, ie hijack
this or sandra or such?

Regarding System Restore, it's turned off, and has been since just after I
reformatted (unless it sonehow got inadvertently turned on). I guess I
should make sure the disk cleanup was set to remove old restore points, but
since it shouldn't have been creating any in the first place, I'm skeptical
that this is amn iissue.

Regarding Dell crapware, I didn't re-install any after the reformat, and
there's no partition, so unless your refering to clutter in the bios, this
isn't an issue.

Regarding added software beyond what was on it when it was new, there's a
ton, and a lot of different hardware, too (I've had the machine for almost 6
years).

 

[Andy]

Run a disk usage program. Google windows disk usage software.

 

[Rock]

I'm running XP home w/ SP2 on a Dell Dimension 8100 w/ 768 MB of RAM. I
reformatted in January and my machine was running well for six weeks or
so,
after which it started slowing down and acting buggy. It got
progressively
worse until about two weeks ago, when I got an error message saying it
couldn't do whatever I was trying to do because the hard drive was almost
full. I couldn't imagine this could be true, as my drive is 80 GB and I
only have 35GB or so of data on it. The drive's properties also claimed
it
was nearly full. I ran the disk cleanup thingy which only freed up a few
MB. I unhid system folders and checked the properties of each folder on
the drive (my C: drive, by the way) and they totalled about 35 MBs ("size
on disc"), just like I expected. Checked System restore, which was turned
off like I thought (which I assume means it's using no space). Checked
paging file, which is set at 2304 MB - a little high, but it's worked for
me fine in the past. Ran Checkdisk, which found nothing, and Scandisk,
which found and fixed one orphaned.tmp file with no appreciable impact.
Defragged, no help. Ran Seagate's Seatools (the drive is a Maxtor) and
Dell's 32-bit Diagnostics (which scans all the hardware in the machine for
malfunctions). Both gave me a clean bill of health. I cussed at it and
threatened to buy a Mac. Still no help. Compressed the data (via the
checkbox in the drive's properties) which crunched it down to about 58 GB
(from almost 75), and it's running better, but not all that well. Since
then the alleged space used has crept back up to about 61GB, and I haven't
added any data to speak of, just a few e-mails and a teeny-weeny Word file
or two, and the bugginess has gotten worse. If no one can help, I might
have to cuss at it again...

Use something like TreeSize to see what's taking up the space.
http://www.jam-software.com/freeware/index.shtml

 

[smlunatick]

No parttitons, and chkdsk didn't help






- Show quoted text -

Try : http://windirstat.info/

 

[dobey]

Have you actually tried checking for large files on your PC?

Maybe you enabled some system log that is slowly filling your HDD.

Try looking for files that have changed in the past few days.
Maybe some worm that is filling up your HDD.