Low Disk Space, System Restore Disabled

[Katonahjoe]

I am constantly getting the low disk space error message. When I run Disk
Cleanup, I get a message saying I have 0 Mb of free disk space and System
Restore is disabled.

The first time this happened, I used Add/Remove Programs to remove 90MB of
programs. Next, I lost all my cookies and the Low Disk message and Disabled
System restore messages appeaared again.

I have not added any software or hardware recently. I had over 650 MB of
free disk space last week when I checked My Computer. As I type this it
shows only 1.83MB free. I only have Outlook Express and IE running to save
resources.

Can I remove any of the following programs? How?

1. Microsoft Office XP Media Content - would removing this effect Windows
Media Player or the My Pictures folder and files?
2. Microsoft .Net Framework 2.0 - I could not find a description in
Microsoft Help and Support.
3. Games - not on Control Panel but I dont use them. How do I remove them?
4. Quicktime - comes with ITunes. Will check with Apple since I dont use
video feature of ITunes

Is it safe to keep the PC running and hope the Low Disk issue resolves
itself?

 

[Patrick Keenan]

I am constantly getting the low disk space error message. When I run Disk
Cleanup, I get a message saying I have 0 Mb of free disk space and System
Restore is disabled.

The first time this happened, I used Add/Remove Programs to remove 90MB of
programs. Next, I lost all my cookies and the Low Disk message and
Disabled System restore messages appeaared again.

I have not added any software or hardware recently. I had over 650 MB of
free disk space last week when I checked My Computer. As I type this it
shows only 1.83MB free. I only have Outlook Express and IE running to save
resources.

Open IE and clear Temporary Internet Files, then reduce the space for the
cache to maybe 25 meg. This alone could easily recover several hundred
megabytes.

It's important to clear the Temp folders as well.

Download, install and run ccleaner. Use the defaults and let it remove what
it finds - keep cookies if they are important to you. This will quickly
clear the temp folders and the IE caches.

www.ccleaner.com

Can I remove any of the following programs? How?

1. Microsoft Office XP Media Content - would removing this effect Windows
Media Player or the My Pictures folder and files?
2. Microsoft .Net Framework 2.0 - I could not find a description in
Microsoft Help and Support.
3. Games - not on Control Panel but I dont use them. How do I remove
them?
4. Quicktime - comes with ITunes. Will check with Apple since I dont use
video feature of ITunes

Is it safe to keep the PC running and hope the Low Disk issue resolves
itself?

It won't resolve itself unless it's by way of drive failure that forces you
to replace the drive with a larger one.

If you don't use the Office Media Content, you can uninstall it. But
uninstalling software will only defer what you really need to do, and that's
to get a much larger drive.

Get another much larger drive that matches your system (EIDE or SATA) and
attach it to the system, either as a secondary drive or externally via a
USB2.0 adapter. Clear enough space on the primary drive to download and
install the Acronis True Image 15-day trial version. Or, remove your
existing drive and attach it and the new one to another XP system that does
have enough space for the TrueImage trial.

Use this to clone the primary drive to the new drive. Set the cloning
process to manual and tell it to expand the partition to fill the new
drive's space.

http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/trueimage/

When it's done, shut down, remove both drives, and change the jumpers on the
new one to match the old one; re-attach only the new one where the old one
was. Set the old one aside in the anti-static bag the new drive came in.

Restart, and you are done. Uninstall the TrueImage trial, or buy it as a
backup utility. The whole thing shouldn't take much more than a couple of
hours. The system will run exactly as it does now, but without the
warnings - and it should be faster.

And it won't be particularly expensive; I paid about CDN$82 for a 250-gig
drive very recently. Replacing the drive in this way will also decrease
the chances of your losing all the data from drive failure.

Since you mention iTunes, I'll speculate that you also have a large number
of music files. If you don't want to clone the drive, just move these to a
new disk and tell iTunes about it.

HTH
-pk

 

[DL]

650mb of free space is likely insufficient in any case.
What is the size of your HD?

 

[Gerry Cornell]

How large is your hard drive? Is the hard drive formatted as FAT32 or
NTFS? Do you have more than one hard drive or partition?

The Norton Protected Recycle Bin is hidden and, if unemptied, often
creates free disk space problems. Norton Ghost, an alternative to
System Restore, does the same. Another product similar to Ghost is
Rollback Pro also creates enormous hidden files. In certain situations
when the user is working hard to create more free space these type of
products can in effect grab the deletions and hide them. In these
users become very frustrated until they realise what is happening.

If you have turned off System Restore what alternative, if any, are
you using? Are you sure you have turned off System Restore as Low Disk
Space messages are generated at defined intervals by the System as the
space occupied by System Restore goes below 200 mb!

Have you looked at the default disk space allocations for the Recycle
Bin -10% and Temporary Internet Files 3%?

Another default setting which could be wasteful is that for temporary
internet files especially if you do not store offline copies on disk.
The default allocation is 3% of drive. Depending on your attitude to
offline copies you could reduce this to 1% or 2%. In Internet Explorer
select Tools, Internet Options, General, Temporary Internet Files,
Settings to make the change. At the same time look at the number of
days history is held.

The default allocation for the Recycle Bin is 10 % of drive. On your
drive 5% should be sufficient. In Windows Explorer place the cursor on
your Recycle Bin, right click and select Properties, Global and move
the slider from 10% to 5%.

As you are using Outlook Express as a newsreader you need to compact
regularly. Have you downloaded the recent Outlook Express update
KB923694? When you compact a copy of each dbx file is now placed in
the Recycle Bin for retrieval should the compacting process go wrong.
This means that running other housekeeping procedures after compacting
may , subject to the way Outlook Express is used, be highly desirable.

Select Start, All Programs, Accessories, System Tools, Disk CleanUp to
Empty your Recycle Bin and Remove Temporary Internet Files. Also
select Start, All Programs, accessories, System Tools, Disk CleanUp,
More Options, System Restore and remove all but the latest System
Restore point. Run Disk Defragmenter. Follow this procedure for each
partition in turn.

--

Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[Shenan Stanley]

I am constantly getting the low disk space error message. When I
run Disk Cleanup, I get a message saying I have 0 Mb of free disk
space and System Restore is disabled.

The first time this happened, I used Add/Remove Programs to remove
90MB of programs. Next, I lost all my cookies and the Low Disk
message and Disabled System restore messages appeaared again.

I have not added any software or hardware recently. I had over 650
MB of free disk space last week when I checked My Computer. As I
type this it shows only 1.83MB free. I only have Outlook Express
and IE running to save resources.

Can I remove any of the following programs? How?

1. Microsoft Office XP Media Content - would removing this effect
Windows Media Player or the My Pictures folder and files?
2. Microsoft .Net Framework 2.0 - I could not find a description in
Microsoft Help and Support.
3. Games - not on Control Panel but I dont use them. How do I
remove them? 4. Quicktime - comes with ITunes. Will check with Apple since
I
dont use video feature of ITunes

Is it safe to keep the PC running and hope the Low Disk issue
resolves itself?

hahah
You think the 'low disk space' is going to resolve itself?
That's like seeing your garbage can full and just waiting until it rots to
resolve itself.

You need to figure out where the problem is and resolve it.

How large is your hard disk drive anyway?
How large are the partition(s) on said hard disk drive?
If you don't know - now is a fine time to find out.

- Open 'My Computer'.
- Find your hard disk drive listed there (usually at least 'Local Disk
(C') and right-click on it.
- Choose 'Properties'.
- You should see (under the General tab) three numbers...
- Free Space
- Used Space
- Capacity
- Come back and respond here with those three numbers as shown.

Used Disk Cleanup?
Is hibernate turned on and do you use that feature?
Uninstalled unnecessary applications lately?

If you are comfortable with the stability of your system, you can delete the
uninstall files for the patches that Windows XP has installed..

http://www3.telus.net/dandemar/spack.htm

You can run Disk Cleanup - built into Windows XP - to erase all but your
latest restore point and cleanup even more "loose files"..

How to use Disk Cleanup
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310312

You can turn off hibernation if it is on and you don't use it..

When you hibernate your computer, Windows saves the contents of the system's
memory to the hiberfil.sys file. As a result, the size of the hiberfil.sys
file will always equal the amount of physical memory in your system. If you
don't use the hibernate feature and want to recapture the space that Windows
uses for the hiberfil.sys file, perform the following steps:

- Start the Control Panel Power Options applet (go to Start, Settings,
Control Panel, and click Power Options).
- Select the Hibernate tab, clear the "Enable hibernation" check box, then
click OK; although you might think otherwise, selecting Never under the
"System hibernates" option on the Power Schemes tab doesn't delete the
hiberfil.sys file.
- Windows will remove the "System hibernates" option from the Power Schemes
tab and delete the hiberfil.sys file.

You can control how much space your System Restore can use...
(You may want to turn this off on your system.. 3GB?!)

1. Click Start, right-click My Computer, and then click Properties.
2. Click the System Restore tab.
3. Highlight one of your drives (or C: if you only have one) and click on
the "Settings" button.
4. Change the percentage of disk space you wish to allow.. I suggest 5% or
higher.
5. Click OK.. Then Click OK again.

You can control how much space your Temporary Internet Files can utilize...

Empty your Temporary Internet Files and shrink the size it stores to a
size between 128MB and 512MB..

- Open ONE copy of Internet Explorer.
- Select TOOLS -> Internet Options.
- Under the General tab in the "Temporary Internet Files" section, do the
following:
- Click on "Delete Cookies" (click OK)
- Click on "Settings" and change the "Amount of disk space to use:" to
something between 128MB and 512MB. (Betting it is MUCH larger right
now.)
- Click OK.
- Click on "Delete Files" and select to "Delete all offline contents"
(the checkbox) and click OK. (If you had a LOT, this could take 2-10
minutes or more.)
- Once it is done, click OK, close Internet Explorer, re-open Internet
Explorer.

You can use an application that scans your system for log files and
temporary files and use that to get rid of those:

Ccleaner (Free!)
http://www.ccleaner.com/

Other ways to free up space..

SequoiaView
http://www.win.tue.nl/sequoiaview/

DX Hog Hunt
http://www.dvxp.com/en/Downloads.aspx

JDiskReport
http://www.jgoodies.com/freeware/jdiskreport/index.html

Those can help you visually discover where all the space is being used.

 

[Gerry Cornell]

Shenan

The OP thinks they have turned off System Restore but to me the Low
Disk Space messages suggest otherwise.

I am doubtful that, given the control the OP seems to have over the
system, the system might be classified stable!

--

Regards.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[Shenan Stanley]

The OP thinks they have turned off System Restore but to me the Low
Disk Space messages suggest otherwise.

I am doubtful that, given the control the OP seems to have over the
system, the system might be classified stable!

I assumed the System Restore had been disabled because of the low disk
space.
It will stop monitoring if a certain value is reached (disk space..)

http://bertk.mvps.org/html/srauto.html

If the free space on any partition system restore is monitoring falls below
50MB, System Restore will SUSPEND & PURGE all restore points to free up disk
space. You should have already receive a low free disk space message by now.
System Restore will resume monitoring when free disk space reaches 200MB’s.

However - I could be incorrect in this assumption.

 

[Guest]

getting an external hard drive was the best thing i ever did for my computer.
put all of my photos on it and music.

 

[Gerry Cornell]

Shenan

I now think you are right. I misinterpreted the original post. It does
say System Restore has been disabled and not that the user has
disabled System Restore. That does of course mean the OP will need to
address the issue of disk space allocation to System Restore.

--

Regards.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[GateKeeper]

Office XP Media Content is a large collection of images and short video
clips you can use in Office documents. You can remove this from your
computer without causing any problems. Removing it should free up a lot
of space.

It would really helps us help you if you would answer the questions
about the size of your hard drives and partitions.

 

[Katonahjoe]

Rather than reply to each response, I will respond here as follows:

First, I have tried many of the suggestions and I ran CCleaner and am now up
to 461MB free space of 37.2 GB Capacity and System Restore is activated
again. Thanks to all.

I have a 40GB hard drive with 256 MB Ram, Pentium 4 1.8gb processor using
Windows XP Home Edition with Service Pack 2. I don''t know how to tell how
hd is formatted. I believe I have only one partition. I also have a zip
drive, DVD drive and CD-RW drive.

Before my original post, I had used Add/Remove to remove Dell Picture Studio
and a couple minor, small programs I had installed like Spyhunter. I was
only up to about 90MB free space.

Some of my settings are:

1. Automatic Update On - I have the OE update Gerry cited.
2. System Restore - was turned off due to Low Disk Space, now activated and
set at 9%. System Restore shows only one restore point which was this
morning at 8:46am which is after the Low Disk Space error messages started.
3. Temporary Internet Files - cleaned by CCleaner, set at 128MB
4. Recycle Bin - was at 10%, now at 5%. I dont use Norton AV, am using
Windows One Live Care because Norton Internet Security had corrupted my OE
mail folders.Last week, I removed Norton and added a new identity in OE
which works fine.
5. Turned off Hibernate function as Shanen suggested.
6. Cookies - I excluded this box when I ran Ccleaner since my cookies were
not functioning. What is the correct setting to allow persistent cookies so
I can go sites will remember my User ID and passwords for those sites I
choose?

I will run Disk Defragmenter next and remove the Uninstall files you guys
mentioned if still have a problem.

 

[Katonahjoe]

I will try removing Office XP Media Content.

I have a 40GB HD running XP Home Edition with 256MB ram. I assume I have I
have only 1 partition (i.e. C Drive). I do have a zip drive but I dont think
that is what you mean.

 

[Gerry Cornell]

The target to set yourself is 7.4 gb free space. This should be
achievable.

Right click on your C drive in Windows Explorer and you should see
there whether the drive is formatted as FAT32 or NTFS. If NTFS
formatted you can use File Compression to compress folder and files
which rarely if ever accessed. The large Windows Uninstall Update
folders are an obvious but you will win more by taking up the other
suggestion to delete them.

You would probably benefit from turning automatic updates off. Right
click on the My Computer icon on the Desktop and select Properties,
Automatic Updates. Uncheck the box before Automatic (Recommended) and
check the box before Notify me but do not automatically download or
install. Click on Apply and OK and close all windows. Restart your
computer.

Select Start, Help and Support, Keep your computer up to date with
Windows Update and double click Custom. The system then check on you
and then your system to see what you need. At the end of this stage
under Select by Type will be the number of Updates available by
category. Click on Critical and it will list the details of those
available. Check the option for each and every one and then click on
Install. You will then be offered the option to Save to Disk or to
Run. Select Run. The process is then fully automated until it says
hopefully Successful or Finished. You then restart the machine if
asked to do so.

I would reduce the allocation of disk space to System Restore to 700
mb thereby increasing free space by 2.65 gb.

Delete all but the most recent Restore Point using Disk CleanUp (
Start, Programs, Accessories, System Tools, Disk Cleanup, More
options). Include this operation in your regular housekeeping routine.
cCleaner does touch these files.

Do not use cCleaner to remove old Prefetch files save in exceptional
circumstances. cCleaner removes on the basis of age not which are not
now being used. Using cCleaner reduces system performance until it
recovers what it has lost.

Failing to remember passwords is a downside of using cCleaner. Just
make a written note of them and live with the irritant of having to
re-enter passwords.

Removing the install files and relocating Media Content will gain you
significant free space but I cannot guess the amount.

When you can have completed these operations you may still be able to
win space. Go to Start, Control Panel, Folder Options, View, Advanced
Settings and verify that the box before "Show hidden files and
folders" is checked and "Hide protected operating system files " is
unchecked. You may need to scroll down to see the second item. You
should also make certain that the box before "Hide extensions for
known file types" is not
checked. Next in Windows Explorer make sure View, Details is selected
and then select View, Choose Details and check before Name, Type,
Total Size, and Free Space.

Folder Size -a useful tool for use with Windows Explorer when
investigating how disk space is being used.
http://foldersize.sourceforge.net/

Use the Search option in Windows Explorer to search for files over 1
mb. You sort the result in order of size by clicking on size over the
list of files. Search All Users ensuring you have selected Advanced
Options and clicked on the box before Search System Folders, Search
Hidden Files and Folders and Search Sub-Folders.

--

Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Rather than reply to each response, I will respond here as follows:

First, I have tried many of the suggestions and I ran CCleaner and am
now up to 461MB free space of 37.2 GB Capacity and System Restore is
activated again. Thanks to all.

I have a 40GB hard drive with 256 MB Ram, Pentium 4 1.8gb processor
using Windows XP Home Edition with Service Pack 2.

You have less than half of 1GB free on a 40GB drive?

Your problem is a simple one. You have outgrown your existing drive and need
either a bigger one or a second one.

Any suggestion that someone might make to help you reclaim some additional
space will result in a tiny (from a percentage standpoint) improvement. At
best, anything you do can be a stopgap measure. You need to bite the bullet
and buy a new drive.

Fortunatelydisk drives are very inexpensive right now. You should be able to
find an 80GB drive (thus tripling your present disk space) for somewhere in
the neighborhood of $40-50 US if you shop around on the web.

 

[Gerry Cornell]

Ken

No one has asked whether the computer is a desktop or a laptop. It
would better to add any new drive as a slave if that is feasible.
Simplifies the change a great deal.

The OP needs to achieve 7.4 gb free space and this does look
achievable with a bit of push and shove. However, a modest investment
in a further drive and additional menory could extend the computer
life by 2/3 years.

--

Regards.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[Rock]

Rather than reply to each response, I will respond here as follows:

First, I have tried many of the suggestions and I ran CCleaner and am now
up
to 461MB free space of 37.2 GB Capacity and System Restore is activated
again. Thanks to all.

I have a 40GB hard drive with 256 MB Ram, Pentium 4 1.8gb processor using
Windows XP Home Edition with Service Pack 2. I don''t know how to tell how
hd is formatted. I believe I have only one partition. I also have a zip
drive, DVD drive and CD-RW drive.

Before my original post, I had used Add/Remove to remove Dell Picture
Studio
and a couple minor, small programs I had installed like Spyhunter. I was
only up to about 90MB free space.

Some of my settings are:

1. Automatic Update On - I have the OE update Gerry cited.
2. System Restore - was turned off due to Low Disk Space, now activated
and
set at 9%. System Restore shows only one restore point which was this
morning at 8:46am which is after the Low Disk Space error messages
started.
3. Temporary Internet Files - cleaned by CCleaner, set at 128MB
4. Recycle Bin - was at 10%, now at 5%. I dont use Norton AV, am using
Windows One Live Care because Norton Internet Security had corrupted my OE
mail folders.Last week, I removed Norton and added a new identity in OE
which works fine.
5. Turned off Hibernate function as Shanen suggested.
6. Cookies - I excluded this box when I ran Ccleaner since my cookies were
not functioning. What is the correct setting to allow persistent cookies
so
I can go sites will remember my User ID and passwords for those sites I
choose?

I will run Disk Defragmenter next and remove the Uninstall files you guys
mentioned if still have a problem.

Get a larger drive. Why spend all this time fighting something that
continue to grow and be a problem?

 

[Katonahjoe]

Thank you for your detailed and easy to follow steps.

I have an Ntfs drive on a desktop.

I am now at 527MB free space, hope to reach 7.4 GB soon. Will let you know.