hard disk space missing!!

arcticflare · 07-06-2005, 10:15 AM

My hdd has 5 partitions with win xp on d and win98 on c drive. my d drive has a free space of 1.7gb, but recently it started showing a critical disk space warning(49MB) without anything new installed into drive d. Then after some time it read 517MB free space. where could i have lost that 1GB space and is there any virus attack involved. i use norton sys works 05 and it showed up no virus. any help plz.

aadipa · 07-06-2005, 10:51 AM

System Restore With default settings, it may take upto 10% of ur drive space.
Swap File with default settings, will take 1.5 times of your total RAM.
Hibernation Support will make a pagefile in ur system drive as big as ur RAM.

Check if you have any of these files. Also some temp file may be created while you are using some applications, thus eating space.

With SequoiaView u should get diagram like this tell what files u taking how much space. Each rectangle is a file on disk. Just hover ur mouse over rectangle to see the filename in tooltip. Other info about file is displayed at status bar.
make sure to select Show hidden and system files in options to view all files.

Here is what u should get

Get it from http://www.win.tue.nl/sequoiaview/

Larger the rectangle, larger the file.

Thanks to ImageShack for Free Image Hosting

saROMan · 07-06-2005, 11:10 AM

well bud..it cud b either coz ur Temp folder is full ..ur using Hybernation ...or it could be ur Page file..

go to
1)
X:\windows\temp
2)
X:\Documents and Settings\User name\Local Settings\Temp
3)
X:\Documents and Settings\User name\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files

and delete the contents in these folders....

Go to Start->cpanel->power options->hybernation.and disable it....

right click on comp _>properties->advanced->Performence->settings->advance->Virtual memory->change ..and set the Vmemory to 2.5 Times of ur RAM max....

also get some cleaning tools like CCleaner to get rid of Junk files....

Nimda · 07-06-2005, 11:31 AM

Disabling System Restore should solve the problem. In Windows XP,

Right click My Computer -> Properties -> System Restore Tab -> Enable the "Turn off System Restore on All Drives" option -> Apply -> Ok.

Restart ur PC.

iinfi · 07-06-2005, 11:44 AM

i dont think u sud disable system restore even if it eats up some of ur space ...
it is useful in critical situations ... it helps u to restore ur computer to a previous date/time (in case some s/w recently installed is causing problem) thus saving u valuable time .....

u can always delete the all the restoration points except the last one by "Disk Cleanup"

Nimda · 07-06-2005, 11:49 AM

True, iinfi. But from my experience, I've found that when a serious problem occurs, System Restore is of little help. You just have to reinstall Windows.

And coming to minor problems, they can be solved without SysRestore if you have enough experience

Still, if keeping SysRestore turned on gives you confidence, then why not? But don't forget to decrease the allotted space a bit.

iinfi · 07-06-2005, 05:17 PM

yes buddy,
when u tinker directly with ur registry u wont get any help frm system restore .....
but on other occations like, if a software installed recently makes ur system slow and unresponsive or any such thing and when uninstalling the s/w wont help ....
system restore comes to the rescue

arcticflare · 07-06-2005, 08:41 PM

i disabled sys restore but after an hr or so it showed 15MB free. the documents and settings folder takes up 4.5GB nearly half the OS drive space. when i check size of all folders combined it gives 1.5GB free. even the temp files and temp internet files are deleted but this low space keeps showing up very often. plz suggest what might be wrong.

expertno.1 · 07-06-2005, 09:01 PM

well somec system junk files are also taking up space

use system mechanic to remove those junks

sometimes i have got junk files like as.tmp of 667 mb also

so check it