Confused regarding HDD space

[Guest]

I recently received a 600MhZ Dell running Windows 2000 Professional. The
confusion is coming in where this computer has a 10gig HDD, the only programs
installed are NOrton Antivirus Corporate Edition, Earthlink software, and
Roxio Easy CD Creator 5. But the hard drive is stating that it is full and
out of space. There are no files or documents or downloads on the computer.
I'm wondering what is taking up all the space and what I can do to correct
this. Any further information needed to assist me will be readily available
upon request.

 

[John John]

Well, look in the winnt folder and you'll see some of the big space
hogs, some things in there you can change and others you can't. Two big
files are pagefile.sys and if you use hibernate feature you will see a
file called hibernate.sys. Pagefile.sys size depends on how much RAM is
on your system and as MC Hammer would say "U Cant Touch This"! LEAVE IT
ALONE! It's big but it needs to be the size it is. As for
hibernate.sys that file can reach hundreds of megabytes but it is needed
if you hibernate the system. If you don't hibernate the system I think
the file can be deleted or reduced but do further research on the
subject before you proceed.

Look for folders named $NtUninstallKBxxxxxx$. All of these can be
removed, some aren't very big though but some might be 10 to 15mb. Look
for $NtServicePackUninstall$, that one will be 200-300 mb or so and can
be removed. Look for a folder called ServicePackFiles, thats's another
200+ mb, it can be deleted but I don't like removing it.

Finally slack space and fat32 file system might explain some of the lost
space, converting to NTFS might reclaim some space.

John

 

[Guest]

Well, look in the winnt folder and you'll see some of the big space
hogs, some things in there you can change and others you can't. Two big
files are pagefile.sys and if you use hibernate feature you will see a
file called hibernate.sys. Pagefile.sys size depends on how much RAM is
on your system and as MC Hammer would say "U Cant Touch This"! LEAVE IT
ALONE! It's big but it needs to be the size it is. As for
hibernate.sys that file can reach hundreds of megabytes but it is needed
if you hibernate the system. If you don't hibernate the system I think
the file can be deleted or reduced but do further research on the
subject before you proceed.

Look for folders named $NtUninstallKBxxxxxx$. All of these can be
removed, some aren't very big though but some might be 10 to 15mb. Look
for $NtServicePackUninstall$, that one will be 200-300 mb or so and can
be removed. Look for a folder called ServicePackFiles, thats's another
200+ mb, it can be deleted but I don't like removing it.

Finally slack space and fat32 file system might explain some of the lost
space, converting to NTFS might reclaim some space.

John

I found a file named 08.06.02.discreet.3d.studio.max.5.0-pantheon.rar
which is located in C:\WINNT\repair\iro\ul. This file isa RAR file and size
is 224,672kb. I'm not finding any files named hibernate.sys or for that
matter any servicepacks uninstalls. In regards to the fat32 and NTFS, how do
I determine what this computer is using? Thanks for your help and assistance.

 

[John John]

I found a file named 08.06.02.discreet.3d.studio.max.5.0-pantheon.rar
which is located in C:\WINNT\repair\iro\ul. This file isa RAR file and size
is 224,672kb. I'm not finding any files named hibernate.sys or for that
matter any servicepacks uninstalls. In regards to the fat32 and NTFS, how do
I determine what this computer is using?

Well I don't know what the pantheon.rar file is, obviously looks like a
3D Studio file of sorts. Do you have 3d studio installed on that
machine? The file could be a project file for all I know. In any case,
the file is a .rar archive which means that it is not used, its like a
..zip file, it's an archive so safe to remove, unless you use 3d Studio
and this is some sort of program upgrade or a copy of a project you're
working on, if that is the case I would back it up before deleting it.
Having no hibernate file is normal. As for fat32/NTFS right click on
the drive from an explorer window and click Properties, it will tell you
what the file system is. Thinking about .rar and .zip do a search on
your drive for these files, search for *.rar and *.zip. I am not saying
or suggesting that you should delete all of these files they could be
important files but they are not in use, they're all archives so safe to
delete. Also search for *.tmp these are all safe to delete. Did you
run a disk cleanup on the drive? Disk Cleanup is at the same place
where you check the file system as I mentioned just above, it will scan
the drive and tell you what it thinks it can remove and how much space
you might reclaim.

John