Fixed: Disappearing Disk Space

MrMilney · Mar 4, 2003

I have a WD 1200 JB disk drive formatted into two partitions of 35GB and 90GB respectively. WinXP is installed on the 35GB partition with about 20GB free space remaining on it. Lately I've noticed that my free space begins disappearing for no apparent reason. After about 3 days I will have only a few megabytes left on the partition and will be forced to reboot. As soon as I start up again all 20GB are back and slowly begin evaporating again. I've searched the internet, this site and microsoft.com for any hints but have found none. I'd appreciate any help!

TIA

crisp82 · Mar 4, 2003

Thats strange. You sure it's only a few megabytes? Is this on both Partitions, or just the XP one? What file system?

MrMilney · Mar 4, 2003

Originally posted by: crisp82
Thats strange. You sure it's only a few megabytes? Is this on both Partitions, or just the XP one? What file system?

What happens is my free space slowly gets filled until I untimately have only a few megabytes left free. At this point various programs beging failing to work properly and I have to reboot in order to free the memory. This only happens on the 35GB partition (my C: drive) that's formatted using NTFS.

crisp82 · Mar 4, 2003

Can you see what the space is being 'filled' with? also, can you see what programs/services are running when this happens, or does this happen even if left at idle with no prgrams running?

MrMilney · Mar 4, 2003

Originally posted by: crisp82
Can you see what the space is being 'filled' with? also, can you see what programs/services are running when this happens, or does this happen even if left at idle with no prgrams running?

It happens with no programs running at all. I've poured over the list of runnin processes and don't see anything out of the ordinary and none of them seem to be particularly active. I don't see any unusual files being created on the partition and folder sizes don't change. It's almost like the free sectors on the hard drive are being marked as being in use even though there is nothing there.

crisp82 · Mar 4, 2003

How long ago did you notice this? What happened before it started happening eg. installed programs, drivers, updates?

Have Western Digitals home page?

MrMilney · Mar 4, 2003

Originally posted by: crisp82
How long ago did you notice this? What happened before it started happening eg. installed programs, drivers, updates?

Have Western Digitals home page?

I've noticed it in the last 2 weeks or so. I installed some Adobe apps (PageMaker, PhotoShop, Illustrator and Acrobat) about a month ago. I've also installed whatever updates Microsoft has posted for WinXP. Nothing outside of that though. Western Digital didn't seem to have anything to help me.

crisp82 · Mar 4, 2003

Got me stumped. If no help comes from here, I would Format and Re-install.

MrMilney · Mar 4, 2003

Originally posted by: crisp82
Got me stumped. If no help comes from here, I would Format and Re-install.

That's my last line of defense. Up till now this system had been rock solid and I was thrilled!

Thanks for all your help.

crisp82 · Mar 4, 2003

Oh yeah, other option would be to remove the programs and updates installed just prior to this happening and see if that works.

Mist · Mar 4, 2003

Don't reformat!!

I've seen this problem referred to in a magazine here in the UK and if you're in luck, I may have the magazine here.

Stand by!!

Michael.

bacillus · Mar 4, 2003

Originally posted by: Mist
Don't reformat!!

I've seen this problem referred to in a magazine here in the UK and if you're in luck, I may have the magazine here.

Stand by!!

Michael.

still waiting!

Mist · Mar 4, 2003

Ok, it's similar to your problem, but it may give you some clues. This is quite long, but I'll write it anyway directly as it's written in the magazine.

Question: "Recently, whilst working on a photographic image file in Paint Shop Pro 7, my hard disc started to clatter away and the system stopped responding to commands. I managed to restart the PC and on checking drive C, found that unused disk space had dropped from 600mb to about 250mb. Since the image I was working on was little more than 2mb, something fairly strange seems to have happened. Do you have any ideas what the best way to get my disk space back is?"

Answer: "This is a tricky one, but we do have an idea what's happened. Editing images, particularly in a package like Psp can be a very storage-hungry process. Your image filesize might only amount to a couple of megabytes, but PSP tracks each and every change that you make so that you have the option of undoing them later. If your PC is short on RAM, then much of this information will be plonked temporarily on your hard disk.

See if there are any files which end in .chk in your temporary folder and delete them.

Any use?

Michael.

MrMilney · Mar 4, 2003

Originally posted by: Mist
Ok, it's similar to your problem, but it may give you some clues. This is quite long, but I'll write it anyway directly as it's written in the magazine.

Question: "Recently, whilst working on a photographic image file in Paint Shop Pro 7, my hard disc started to clatter away and the system stopped responding to commands. I managed to restart the PC and on checking drive C, found that unused disk space had dropped from 600mb to about 250mb. Since the image I was working on was little more than 2mb, something fairly strange seems to have happened. Do you have any ideas what the best way to get my disk space back is?"

Answer: "This is a tricky one, but we do have an idea what's happened. Editing images, particularly in a package like Psp can be a very storage-hungry process. Your image filesize might only amount to a couple of megabytes, but PSP tracks each and every change that you make so that you have the option of undoing them later. If your PC is short on RAM, then much of this information will be plonked temporarily on your hard disk.

See if there are any files which end in .chk in your temporary folder and delete them.

Any use?

Michael.

I appreciate the tip but this doesn?t seem to be my problem. I lose the space no matter what programs I have running or even if I have none running. I have also started keeping a log of folder sizes to try and find where all the extra space is going (for a while I thought I had been hacked and someone was using my system for storage). None of my folders grow unexpectedly (the recycle bin is the only one that changes regularly). It's as if I am losing the free space without actually creating any new files.

Thanks again for trying.

crisp82 · Mar 4, 2003

I no its a long shot, but what are you Virtual Memory/System Restore settings set to?

Wallysaurus · Mar 4, 2003

Do you have Norton SystemWorks installed? Ifso, check the Protected Recycle Bin settings.

thEnEuRoMancER · Mar 4, 2003

What Wallysaurus said. Check Norton protected recycle bin if you have the feature installed.

Some time ago e-Mule on my system had a problem while downloading the server.met file, deleted the file, downloaded it again etc. etc. Norton protected recycle bin saved the files for recovery and the space on my disk was disappearing with the speed of my internet connection.

Also run a search by filesize on your partition and search for any files larger than 1 MB. This could give you a clue on what's going on.

MrMilney · Mar 4, 2003

Originally posted by: crisp82
I no its a long shot, but what are you Virtual Memory/System Restore settings set to?

My virtual memory is fixed at 1GB, System Restore is set to use a maximum of about 1.2GB for that partition. Early on my investigation I was hoping that was the problem too.

MrMilney · Mar 4, 2003

Originally posted by: Wallysaurus
Do you have Norton SystemWorks installed? Ifso, check the Protected Recycle Bin settings.

I don't have SystemWorks installed (but I do own it).

RVN · Mar 4, 2003

Quote

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by: MrMilney
I have a WD 1200 JB disk drive formatted into two partitions of 35GB and 90GB respectively.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

How do you get 125 GB out of a 120 GB hard drive? NTFS formatted, no partition yields 111 GB.

Make sure your running the latest bios version. That's usually the problem with older versions that didn't support the big hard drives.

MrPhelps · Mar 4, 2003

Originally posted by: RVN
Quote

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by: MrMilney
I have a WD 1200 JB disk drive formatted into two partitions of 35GB and 90GB respectively.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

How do you get 125 GB out of a 120 GB hard drive? NTFS formatted, no partition yields 111 GB.

Make sure your running the latest bios version. That's usually the problem with older versions that didn't support the big hard drives.

I have a 100gig hd and it shows its total size is 93.1, Does this sound right???? Thanks

PowerMacG5 · Mar 4, 2003

Originally posted by: MrPhelps

Originally posted by: RVN
Quote

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by: MrMilney
I have a WD 1200 JB disk drive formatted into two partitions of 35GB and 90GB respectively.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

How do you get 125 GB out of a 120 GB hard drive? NTFS formatted, no partition yields 111 GB.

Make sure your running the latest bios version. That's usually the problem with older versions that didn't support the big hard drives.

Click to expand...

I have a 100gig hd and it shows its total size is 93.1, Does this sound right???? Thanks

That's normal. You have to realize the base 2 and base 10 differences. To HDD manufacturers, they rate drives in base 10. OSes such as Windows ans Unix report in base 2. I have a 100 GB WD1000BB and it also reports as 93.1 GB. This is perfectly normal. As drive size increases, this difference will become more and more noticeable and larger.

MrPhelps · Mar 4, 2003

KraziKid
Thanks for clearing it up.

MrMilney · Mar 4, 2003

Originally posted by: RVN
Quote

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by: MrMilney
I have a WD 1200 JB disk drive formatted into two partitions of 35GB and 90GB respectively.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

How do you get 125 GB out of a 120 GB hard drive? NTFS formatted, no partition yields 111 GB.

Make sure your running the latest bios version. That's usually the problem with older versions that didn't support the big hard drives.

Mmm...math bad. I have a 34.1GB partition and a 77.5GB partition for a total of 111.6GB. Sorry for the confusion. I am running the latest BIOS. Remember, this problem only started in the last couple of weeks. I've had this system up and running for months.

kursplat · Mar 5, 2003

could be your page file is just growing untill it eats all your free space. you could try setting a max size for it.
good luck

Fixed: Disappearing Disk Space

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