Hard Disk Free Space gradually shrinking

[Guest]

Hi,
I have windows XP Pro, 384MB Ram, 10GB Hard disk. I did a cleaning of my
hard disk sometime ago and my free HD space was 6.70GB at that time.
What I noticed isthat the free space has been shrinking slowly each day
and now it stands at 6.54GB, that is about 160MB less, if my math is correct.
I haven't installed any software (except for a couple that requires less than
a couple of MB), have been cleaning my disk regularly. WHere did this space
go to? I can't figure out. And it is an ongoing proces. Any help would be
very much appreciated. Thanks in advance

Oniket

 

[Carch]

Ok, Here's what you do. Go to start, run, type in cmd. Then type format c:
ad you're ready to go. Hope this helped.

 

[Michael Solomon \(MS-MVP\)]

Pay no attention to the post by Carch in this thread...some folks just don't
care how much trouble their stupid pranks might cause the unsuspecting
novices who might read their posts.

Two possibilities, one, if you have Hibernation turned on, this file will
grow progressively, thus shrinking free space. If you don't use the
Hibernate feature, go to Control Panel, open Display, go to the Screen Saver
tab, click the Power button under Monitor power, go to the Hibernate tab,
remove the check from Enable hibernation, click apply and ok.

There other possibility is a hidden folder, will hidden unless you have
unhidden system folders in Explorer, System Volume Information. This folder
contains the System Restore information for that particular XP applet and
will grow the file by the amount specified for it, the default is 12% of
your disk space. You should not turn this feature off as it is a good first
line of defense. If you suddenly see a problem, you can take system
settings back to a time prior to when the issue began and see if that
resolves the issue.

Nonetheless, the above is probably the reason for what you are seeing.

 

[André Gulliksen]

Two possibilities, one, if you have Hibernation turned on, this file
will grow progressively, thus shrinking free space.

Grow? hiberfil.sys? I thought this file was locked to the size of installed
RAM, and would not change in size unless you add and/or remove memory.

 

[Guest]

Thanks a lot Michael for your valuable tips. Yes, I do have hibernation
on. That should explain this mysterious shrinking free space. I will
look into the hidden folder possibility. Thanks again.

P.S. I indeed did not pay attention to the previous response. It is sad
to see such mean joke in this season of good spirit. Luckily I was
not too dumb to know what format command does

 

[Michael Solomon \(MS-MVP\)]

Well, I guess that's true because it takes a snapshot of the system at a
given time including which applications are open when you wish to hibernate
the system. The file starts out as a rather small default size but will
grow depending upon use, what's installed, what's open and obviously you
cannot open more than what RAM allows. If you are saying it's locked at a
size equal to the RAM installed on the system, that's not true. It would
have to be able to grow to accommodate what is open

Look at the tab, you'll notice it gives a figure for the amount of free
space, it will also show what is needed to hibernate. Currently, mine shows
250MB needed to hibernate, I've seen it grow well beyond that size not only
on my system when using or testing the feature but on other systems as well
as many users who have posted to these newsgroup will attest.

 

[Michael Solomon \(MS-MVP\)]

You're welcome.

Indeed, it is a shame someone wishes to prey on the unsuspecting and
inexperienced in such a cruel way.

 

[johnf]

Before you do anything drastic, try this little exercise.

Cick on Start, Help & Support / Undo changes to your computer with System
Restore / Restore my computer to an earlier time.
How many dates do you have highlighted in Bold? (check the previous month(s)
also.

This will make no changes to your PC, it's just an exploratory thing; once
you note that, just back out & close Help & Support.

You'll possibly find you have Restore Points going back a month or two - all
the early ones are redundant and can be removed, freeing up stacks of disk
space.
If that's the case, post back with the results. It's quite simple to delete
all but the last few which would be wise to keep.

 

[Ken Blake]

In

P.S. I indeed did not pay attention to the previous response.
It is
sad to see such mean joke in this season of good spirit.
Luckily I was
not too dumb to know what format command does

Fortunately, in this case, it does nothing. His advice was to
format the C: drive from the Start | Run command line, and that
won't work. You can't format the Windows drive from within
Windows; Windows is smart enouth to not let you.

 

[Michael Solomon \(MS-MVP\)]

Agreed.

However, in Windows 9x, you could format the C drive from within Windows as
Windows 9x is FAT and doesn't lock the volume. I don't know if that holds
for XP but if they have XP set up using FAT32 as opposed to NTFS, it might
work.

Also, some unsuspecting person might see the post, note that the volume is
locked and perhaps think he meant they should use their restore disk in
which case they'd likely lose everything on the drive. Stranger things have
happened and even though it shouldn't work in XP, it is irresponsible and
purposefully cruel to post such advice and continue to do so in so many
different places.

 

[Guest]

You have correctly identified the cause. Actually I did not have
hibernation turned on (I had standby on which I mistook for
hibernation). Just for testing I turned off system restore
and I immediately got back all the lost free space. I then
turned back on system restore to 3% (~300MB) as my hard drive
is small. Does this setting satisfy mimimum requirement?
Thanks again

Oniket

 

[Ken Blake]

In

Agreed.

However, in Windows 9x, you could format the C drive from
within
Windows as Windows 9x is FAT and doesn't lock the volume. I
don't
know if that holds for XP but if they have XP set up using
FAT32 as
opposed to NTFS, it might work.

Also, some unsuspecting person might see the post, note that
the
volume is locked and perhaps think he meant they should use
their
restore disk in which case they'd likely lose everything on the
drive. Stranger things have happened and even though it
shouldn't
work in XP, it is irresponsible and purposefully cruel to post
such
advice and continue to do so in so many different places.

Absolutely. It's completely irresponsible, and I said much the
same myself in a reply to him a few days ago. He's undoubtedly a
13-year-old who thinks his replies are funny.

 

[gls858]

In



Absolutely. It's completely irresponsible, and I said much the
same myself in a reply to him a few days ago. He's undoubtedly a
13-year-old who thinks his replies are funny.

Yep all of the kiddies are home for Christmas vacation.
Sure will be nice when grade school is back in session.

gls858

 

[Michael Solomon \(MS-MVP\)]

You're welcome. The real question is whether or not it satisfies your
requirements. System Restore points are deleted as new ones are created,
the oldest ones are deleted first. Run your system for a few days or a
week, then check System Restore, if it doesn't go back far enough to suit
you, you may need to enlarge the allotted space a bit.

I'm running at the default setting but I have an 80GB hard drive so it's no
big deal to me and I have restore dates going clear back to the beginning of
this month. That's not really necessary but if after a week, you are only
able to go back one day on the calendar in system restore, you need to
consider if only a day's worth of restore points or whatever you find is
enough to satisfy your needs.

 

[johnf]

Yep, it sort of fixes it, except by turning it off you lost ALL your
previous restore points.
My next step was to going to be to advise you to reduce it to 2% (which
leaves just the last few points intact but gets rid of all the previous
ones; then increase it back to a higher level.
I reckon 3% should be fine, as that allows a small handful - probably the
last 6 or so to be there continuously, which still allows you to do a
recently caused disaster recovery.
Glad to have helped.

 

[Sharon F]

In


Fortunately, in this case, it does nothing. His advice was to
format the C: drive from the Start | Run command line, and that
won't work. You can't format the Windows drive from within
Windows; Windows is smart enouth to not let you.

Unfortunately, not everyone has Windows installed on C: so there is
potential harm here.

 

[Ken Blake]

In

Unfortunately, not everyone has Windows installed on C: so
there is
potential harm here.

True, but the great majority of people do have it installed on C:
And probably the great majority of those who don't have it
installed on C: are savvy enough to realize what format C: means.

It's *certainly* true that the kid who posted that advice is a
malicious jerk. If he thinks it's a joke, it isn't funny.

 

[Fungusamungus]

I appologize if the answer has already been posted, but my news server
doesn't keep messages very long.

I have XP on a 3.24 gig partition. All the files (including hidden ones)
comes to 2.32 gigs. So I should still have almost 900 megs of free space,
yet it keeps telling me I only have 184 megs!

 

[Michael Solomon \(MS-MVP\)]

If you have system restore turned, something that is recommended, it's
possible it's eating up a lot of space. The default setting is 12% of the
hard drive. You might want to reduce that setting. Control
Panel\System\System Restore\Settings. If you have Hibernation turned on and
it is a feature you do not use, then you should turn it off as it can
consume a lot of hard drive space. Control Panel\Display\Screen Saver\Power
button under Monitor Power\Hibernation tab.

 

[Fungusamungus]

Wonderful! It turns out I had even more space available than I thought (even
after all the settings/files were taken into account). Thank you! And Merry
Christmas!