HUGE "Documents and Settings" Size

[Larry]

I am running Windows 2000 professional on a PII PC, which
has a 18 GByte harddrive. Recently the system became
unstable, and I reinstalled Windows, to find that it
didn't help the stability much. I noticed that the
harddrive was nearly full, so I downloaded and erased
from the hard drive all the material I could. Still, the
computer showed the available space was very small. I
have been unable to defragment the drive successfully,
although the drive properties show 14.3 GB used, 1.42 GB
free. When looking through the directories on the drive,
I noticed that Documents and Settings is using 10.6 GB
(12,518 files in 429 folders), although there is hardly
anything at all in the subfolders. I attempted to format
the drive, but once I got down to the Command Prompt, I
got the error "Can't unmount drive." Any ideas or tips?

 

[Ndi]

Try to chkdsk.

Chkdsk /r /v X:

Matbe there IS something that takes the space and is invisible. Make sure
you have all the settings right, maybe use the command line. Search all
files and sort by size, check to see if a certaing file hogs it all.

 

[Mark V]

Larry wrote in

I am running Windows 2000 professional on a PII PC, which
has a 18 GByte harddrive. Recently the system became
unstable, and I reinstalled Windows, to find that it
didn't help the stability much. I noticed that the
harddrive was nearly full, so I downloaded and erased
from the hard drive all the material I could. Still, the
computer showed the available space was very small. I
have been unable to defragment the drive successfully,
although the drive properties show 14.3 GB used, 1.42 GB
free. When looking through the directories on the drive,
I noticed that Documents and Settings is using 10.6 GB
(12,518 files in 429 folders), although there is hardly
anything at all in the subfolders.

Are you seeing all the Hidden and System files?
Folder Options, View
[x] Show hidden files...
[ ] Hide protected OS files...

I attempted to format
the drive, but once I got down to the Command Prompt, I
got the error "Can't unmount drive." Any ideas or tips?

You cannot cut off the branch you are standing on.
IOW Windows cannot ever format it's own boot or system drives from
within itself.

 

[JeffO]

What Mark V is fishing you towards is the hidden and
superhidden files/folders of Temporary Internet files.
MS has decided to not only hide things from ourselves
with hidden filders, they've also chosen to "super-hide"
them from us.
If you go to folder options and turn on "show hidden
files and folders", htten you can get into the
C:\Documents and Settings\YourUsername\Local
Settings\Temporary Internet Files
folder. There you'll reach a dead-end of smoke&mirrors.
Back in folder options you should also turn on "show full
path inthe address bar". Then you can click at the end of
the address bar and add the following:
\desktop.ini
Push Enter and notepad will launch showing you a cryptic
file with only two lines. Add a semi-colon to the
beginning of each line, and then a space.
Now back out of the folder a couple of levels, or close
Explorer and then explorer right back to it. You'll see
all the true contents of the Temporary Internet Files
folder. This will show all the accumulated Internet junk
on your hard drive.
There should only be 4 folders with random names like the
following:
J02F61SF
If there are more, you've had Internet problems that have
stranded some folders. You can delete all of these
folders. If no folders are detected, IE builds new ones.

Now start Internet Explorer and go to Tools, Internet
Options, Advanced (tab) and scroll all the way down.
Make sure "Empty Temporary Internet Files when browser is
closed" is turned on. This will keep things from
accumulating. If you want frequented websites to load
faster, use the "Make available offline" feature of IE
favorites to cache the files of these most favorite
sites. The "Empty Temporary..." setting won't touch
offline files.

-----Original Message-----
Larry wrote in news:4d2101c3765d$e859c820 [email protected]:

I am running Windows 2000 professional on a PII PC, which
has a 18 GByte harddrive. Recently the system became
unstable, and I reinstalled Windows, to find that it
didn't help the stability much. I noticed that the
harddrive was nearly full, so I downloaded and erased
from the hard drive all the material I could. Still, the
computer showed the available space was very small. I
have been unable to defragment the drive successfully,
although the drive properties show 14.3 GB used, 1.42 GB
free. When looking through the directories on the drive,
I noticed that Documents and Settings is using 10.6 GB
(12,518 files in 429 folders), although there is hardly
anything at all in the subfolders.

Are you seeing all the Hidden and System files?
Folder Options, View
[x] Show hidden files...
[ ] Hide protected OS files...

I attempted to format
the drive, but once I got down to the Command Prompt, I
got the error "Can't unmount drive." Any ideas or tips?

You cannot cut off the branch you are standing on.
IOW Windows cannot ever format it's own boot or system drives from
within itself.


.