Shrinking hard disk

[granny]

What can cause this?

Our hard disk is pretty full (well, ok, VERY full). Last week, we still had over 100 Mb of space left (on a 1.2 Gig hard drive. And yes, I am looking at building a new computer to replace that dinosaur!). This week, suddenly, it had no space left to speak of (50 Mb?) Yet, we had not installed anything new. The space just seemed to disappear and I can't figure out where it went. I did delete all the cache files and all the junk that came from the internet, but I didn't gain anything much. When I tried to delete other files to make more space, it even ended up with even less space at times. :confused:

Another thing I don't understand is how the free space on my hard disk disappears. Let's say I have 115 Mb of free space on the disk. Then, I load some programs and use them. But after I close the programs, I don't get the space back on my hard disk. The only way to get it back is to shut down and reboot. Sometimes I have to do this several times a day. Can someone explain this to me?

One last question. I thought it might be a good thing to convert the disk to FAT32. But I get the message that my virus scan might not work afterwards. How difficult is it to convert? Have you encountered problems doing so? I am afraid I might be opening a Pandora's box...

I know this system is getting much too old, but I just want to understand what is happening here, because it is very puzzling.

Louise

[mjc]

Ok, I guess you originally had Win95 on the drive and then updated to 98?

You also probably have 64MB or less of RAM?

And Windows is managing your swap file?


With a small hard drive and a Windows managed swapfile you will get many diskspace warnings/notifications when the drive fills up.

As to the AV (anti-virus) not working if you convert to FAT32, when was the last time it was updated?

Also, as usual, as much system information as you can dig up would be very useful.

[Budfred]

It sounds like you probably need to defrag your HD, a lot of space gets eaten up by files placed poorly on the HD. If you have DriveSpace on your OS, you could double your space with compression, but you may not have enough space left to use it.

You could consider putting in another HD rather than building an entirely new system.

Budfred

[granny]

mjc,

No, I have Win 98SE on the machine, which admitedly is talking a huge chunck of my HD. Apart from that, you are right.

As for the virus scanner, I think it is just a general warning. I suppose I can just delete it and re-install it after converting. Still, it's a nuisance.

As I said, it's an old dinosaur that I just keep going until I am finished building my new system (going to the big city tomorrow to buy the parts :-) ) PT-2003 mainboard, Pentium 133 with 1.2 Gig HD, 49 MB memory, 28.8 modem, Media Vision Jazz 16 Video card, you get the picture. The only thing that was replaced was the CD-ROM, about 1 year ago, with a new Acer 52X that seems now to be on the blink as it is there sometimes, sometimes not. Could be software, of course...

I deleted a bunch of files yesterday, and it seems to work better now. But it still doesn't explain to me about the disappearing space on the HD or why just loading a program in memory should use up disk space that doesn't come back until I reboot.

Budfred, I did defragment the disk, but that didnt' do anything for me. And I could see from the detailed display that the disk was indeed very full.

And no, I won't put anything more on this machine. It's not worth it. I'd rather put my money on a new machine that will work properly instead of giving me BSODs several times a day! :mad:

Thanks both of you for writing.

Louise

[mjc]

Because when Windows manages the swapfile (virtual memeory, a disk cache used when the amount of RAM is not adequate for all that is currently running on a machine), it will grow it readily but windows does not really want to shrink it because you may just change your mind and decide to reuse what you just closed...

[granny]

Oooooooh! Is that what it was! Now I understand.

Sooooo... the way around that, if I don't mind having to load programs from scratch, is to limit the size of the swap file, right? (I am not sure how to do it, but I am sure there are all kinds of tutorials dealing with that on the net.)

Louise

[sleddog]

Limiting the size of the swapfile will likely cause problems like 'out of memory' errors when you attempt to run a program.

If you want to keep that machine operational without upgrading you need to buckle down and clear out some hard drive space. Which probably means removing some software you don't *really* need at the moment.

Don't overlook the C:Windows\Temp folder. Sort the folder contents by date, and delete anything dated older than the current day.

To get an idea where the big files are on your harddrive, do a search. Enter *.* as the search criteria and specify all files over (e.g.) 500kb in size. You may find some long-forgotten, unneeded, big data files that can be deleted.

Another useful search is for backup files. Enter *.bak as a search criteria and see what turns up. Or try Backup*.*

After you've cleaned out some space, empty the recycle bin and defragment the drive. This will provide more contiguous hard drive space for Windows to use for the swap file, instead of writing bits and pieces all over the place. That will improve overall performance.

Set a strick limit for you browser cache. Internet Explorer tends to set rediculously large cache sizes. Given your restrictions, I'd set the cache to maybe 5mb.

[mjc]

With the memory you have, I think sleddog may be right...let Windows continue to manage it.

[Paul Komski]

Two other general thoughts that others might like to expand on.

(1) Don't forget that the "super-hidden index.dat" files can grow to enormous dimensions over time. These can be deleted from DOS (if you can find them) or be shredded by a utility like InternetCleanup.

(2) If you have a lot of small files on your pc, then you can utilise the available space on your HDD much more efficiently by partitioning your drive.
As for the virus scanner, I think it is just a general warning. I suppose I can just delete it Don't delete applications; uninstall them. ;)