Unexplained memory loss. . . ?

[Guest]

I'll try to sum up:

As soon as I had gone to exit out of my Windows Media Player 11, the
computer immediately reset to the boot up splash screen, which after waiting
approximately five minutes appeared to be doing nothing. I clicked the reset
button on the CPU. Computer began to restart as normal, but after the Windows
XP splash page finished loading, I got a black screen where nothing happened.
Alarmed, I again clicked the reset button on the CPU. This time, after the
initial splash page disappeared, I got the 'Do you want to start Windows in
Safe Mode?' message area. I tried this and got a lot of text appear on the
screen which appeared to stop after a few moments. I clicked the reset button
again and tried it one more time, this time choosinf 'Start in Safe Mode with
Networking. Same response.

I once again clicked the reset button. This time I chose an option I'd never
seen before: Start Windows with the last known successful configuration (or
something to that effect). The computer seemed to be booting up as normal.
Again, after the Windows XP splash page finished loading, I got a black
screen. This time I chose to wait a little bit longer. Success! I finally
managed to get my computer to boot up! I got a message stating that my
antivirus software had been the problem (I use AVG Home Free Edition).

The most worrying part about this, though, is the fact that I had 31.1 Gigs
of free space left on my computer before this happened. Now I only have 24.9.
I tried defreagging the system, but that seemed to do nothing,

Does anyone happen to have any idea where that 6.2 Gigs of space went and if
I can recover it in some way?

 

[Gerry]

Try running Disk CleanUp in all user profiles.

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.

It is likely that an allocation of 12% has been made to System Restore
on your C partition which is over generous. I would reduce it to 700
mb. Right click your My Computer icon on the Desktop and select System
Restore. Place the cursor on your C drive select Settings but this
time find the slider and drag it to the left until it reads 700 mb and
exit. When you get to the Settings screen click on Apply and OK and
exit.

Another default setting on a large drive 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. Change to
5%, which 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%. However, try to avoid letting it get
too full as if it is full and you delete a file by mistake it will
bypass the Recycle Bin and be gone for ever.

Are you using any backup software like Norton Ghost?

--



Hope this helps.

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

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the response!

I had done the Disk Cleanup earlier. Perhaps that's what caused the majority
of the 'missing space' to suddenly appear again. I still seem to be missing
about 300 Mb, but that's infinitely preferably to 6.1 Gigs.

I don't have any backup programs like Norton Ghost (I don't trust Norton as
I've had technical problems with it in the past and have received poor
customer service regarding it), but I'm definitely going to look into getting
such a program.

I think I might leave the Recycle Bin as it is, though, as I tend to delete
large files on a regular basis and would likely fill up it's quota very
quickly. It's good to know about that option in general, though.

THanks for all of your help; it's greatly appreciated.