How much of that 50GB is free? To check this, double click on "My
Computer", right click on "C drive", click on "Properties...", and if not
already on it, click on "General" as the info will show in there.
Another thing to consider, how much RAM do you have and what is your Virtual
Memory set at? It's recommended that your Virtual Memory is set to 1.5
times the size of your RAM minimally. (i.e. If RAM is 512MB, set Virtual
Memory to 768MB minimal.) What ever is the size of your virtual memory,
that is the amount of your free disk space that has to be kept reserved just
for that purpose else you are likely to run into system crashes (I
personally ran into this issue 3 years ago before I did a major overhual on
my system, but then the HD size was 650MB with a P2 equivalent MB and 128MB
of SDRAM 100). If your Virtual Memory is running low, you can have it setup
in W2K Pro to automatically adjust this memory size, but again, it's gonna
depend on the free space on your HD and could mean further defragmentation,
which brings up another consideration.
One last thing to consider doing about once every 3 months, run the defrag
program that comes with W2K Pro. This will help in freeing up some disk
space and optimizes your files. Main thing it does, it regroups the files,
thus taking out the pointers between file fragments as there won't be any,
and if you do the full optimization, it groups all (or at least as much as
possible) of the free disk space to the last part of the disk (as shown in
the graphical map, when viewed). This tool is located under Administrative
Tools>Computer Management>Storage>Disk Defragmenter (Note, must have the
appropriate administrative priviledges to use this tool).
