Disk Full Error

[Guest]

I have a 120 GB HD with about 40 GB of data but my system is telling me my HD
is full. This happened once before when an automatic update caused system
problems. On that occasion I ran CHKDSK which "found" about 20 GB followed
by AdAware & Spybot which corrected it completely. This time nothing works.
My Virus checker is up to date, online access is firewalled, a virus scan is
clear, AdAware & Spybot are clear, I have run CHKDSK & RegClean and restored
to an earlier point but to no avail. I cannot defrag because the system
tells me I have insufficient space. Can anyone help please?

Thank you!

 

[Alan Smith]

I have a 120 GB HD with about 40 GB of data but my system is telling me my
HD
is full. This happened once before when an automatic update caused system
problems. On that occasion I ran CHKDSK which "found" about 20 GB
followed
by AdAware & Spybot which corrected it completely. This time nothing
works.
My Virus checker is up to date, online access is firewalled, a virus scan
is
clear, AdAware & Spybot are clear, I have run CHKDSK & RegClean and
restored
to an earlier point but to no avail. I cannot defrag because the system
tells me I have insufficient space. Can anyone help please?

Thank you!

Are the files in the root directory? If so put them into directories as
there are a limited number of directory entries for the root and can give
this problem

 

[Guest]

My data files are all organised in folders within My Documents or Shared
Documents (I have my laptop connected via a wireless network)

 

[Fitz]

Run CCleaner (freeware-Google for it) and delete unnecessary file (internet,
temp etc.). Turn off System Restore (this will delete all system restore
files thus freeing up space), right click on the desktop, select Properties,
select Screensaver tab, select Power button, select Hibernate tab and
uncheck it. When you restart your computer this will delete the
hiberfil.sys file which can be enormous. Run Defrag. Turn on system
restore, etc.

 

[Guest]

I've tried that but no success - deleting files is not affecting the reported
disk usage so I cannot run defrag. Chkdsk /v reports that there is free
space referenced as allocated and advises running chkdsk /f but that is not
clearing it - I think it is producing a message but it is too quick to read
before the system reboots. The problem is not that the disk is actually full
but that it thinks it is. Thanks for the pointer to CCleaner - much more
user friendly than the MS option.

 

[Alan Smith]

Have you turned on the ability to see any hidden and system files in case
there are things you don't see?

tools, folder options, view, advanced settings

 

[Guest]

Yes I did have hidden files displayed - I also have a disk directory utility
which identifies files and directory sizes so knew that it was an error as
opposed to a genuinely full disk, and chkdsk confirmed that there was free
space designated as allocated although wasn't clearing it. Any files I
deleted made little difference so I decided to take more drastic action and
deleted a 10 GB laptop backup file. That seems to have done the trick in
that the properties now show 66 GB free instead of 189 MB and chkdsk now runs
ok.

I'd really like to find out what is causing this corruption - while XP
reports the drive as full to the extent that the normal utilities do not run
it makes the system potentially unstable.

 

[n6wav]

I'm having a similar problem after using Partition Magic 8.0 to add 5GB
to an existing 5GB partition, yet afterwards it still shows I only have
27MB available. However, it should be noted that I copied the
partition over from another disk that seemed to be failing into a
larger partition, so this was an existing problem.

What appears to be happening is that XP is creating hidden system files
(named 0, P, A, G), three of which are 1,572,072KB and the last of
about 500MB to fill in up to the 27MB mark. The only apparent reason
for their existence is to fill the space up so there's only 27MB left,
which makes no sense at all.

There's no apparent way to delete the files. If someone could tell me
how to fix this, or even some rational explanation for why this
happpens, it would be much appreciated.

Thanks,
Michael

 

[Guest]

I've always tried to avoid creating new partitions preferring to install a
secondary hard drive but curiously my second HD (120 GB) corrupted after I
had "fixed" my main HD in that it had not correctly deleted files, so treated
directories as unreadable. In this case chkdsk did correct the problem,
helpfully reinstating over 20GB of data that I had laboriously deleted! I
think this error was coincidental to my initial error but paranoia sets in
after a while!

Chkdsk works amazingly well but seems to need a certain amount of free space
in order to correct everything. Have you tried running chkdsk on the problem
partition? I think the problem in my case is with what I assume is a
registry file that "tells" the system how much space is free on the disk and
which obviously "thought" there was less space available than there was.
Although chkdsk identified the problem it did not correct it until I had
deleted my 10 GB backup file and then "miraculously found" the lost space.