XP drive get full after several days withour rebooting.

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Guest

Hello everyone,

just realised that my XP is consuming a LOT of disk space over time, which
appear to be re-available once I restart my machine. I use XP Home edition.

Here are the symtoms: Checking regularly the properties of my C: drive I
can see that the space decrease constantly. When I reboot my machine, the
disk space is back to the level it was when I started it previously.

I use the computer over several days without shuting it down, simply
folding back the screen of my laptop, which, I think, put the computer in
standby or something. After several days, the c: drive was FULL, althought
there was over 30 gig available at start.

Monitoring the system, I can see that the "system" process is constantly
performing "I/O write bytes". As i am writing this, over 2 gig has been
writen by this process over two hours. I don't know if the symptoms and this
fact are related or not.

If nothing occurs on the system, would it be normal for the "system"
process to constantly write? What could cause the Disk to get full and space
releases once we restart XP?

I have the latest XP version with all system updates applied. Any idea
what is going on in my XP, any suggestions to help me investigate this and
resolve the problem^

Thanks,

- Pierre
 
To investigate how you are using hard disk space you need to make sure
that you can see all files. 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, and Total Size.

You still will not see the System Volume Information folder but for all
practical purposes I think we can put that to one side.

Are you using any Norton utilities?

FileSize -a useful tool for use with Windows Explorer when investigating
how disk space is being used.
http://markd.mvps.org/

The download link is not obvious. Click the here in the two sentences of
the web page accessed through the link above. "I can't count the number
of times someone has asked for this. So here is a module you can install
that shows a Folder Size column in Explorer."

How large is your hard drive? How much free disk space? Is the drive
partitioned?

Note 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.

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.

Also search for ".log" files which are abnormally large.



--

Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England

Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
XPUser said:
I have the latest XP version with all system updates applied. Any idea
what is going on in my XP, any suggestions to help me investigate this and
resolve the problem^
Click to expand...

Goto:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/Processesandthreadsutilities.mspx

download and run
FileMon to see where the writes are going to
or ProcessMonitor - more in depth and harder to use.

also

I use Treesize for times like this
http://www.jam-software.com/freeware/index.shtml
install then right click on drive or directory.
See what's taking up space.
 
Hello everyone,

thanks to both of you of provided me valuable information. I used the tools
you have suggested and could easily find the source of my problem to be
related to the "bootvis" tool that I have installed a while ago and forgot to
turn off. This was creating a huge log file inside of
c:\windows\system32\wmi\trace.log.

I have uninstalled bootvis, clean the log file, and now my system is acting
properly.

Once again, thanks for your help.

- XPUser
 
Thanks for reporting the outcome. You are the second person I have
encountered who has had the same problem. Microsoft withdrew Bootvis but
it is still available from third parties.

--

Regards.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England

Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
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