Talk about a pain in the butt.

[SeaCat]

Last night as I was online I get a message from my computer complaining that it's hard drive is getting full. WHat the hell? I have a 16+ Gig Hard Drive so how can it be getting full?

I started checking what all I have on my computer. Believe it or not I don't have much.

Maybe a dozen pictures. (Most of my pictures are either stored online or on disk.)

A couple of stories I'm working on.

Windows XP.

Norton SYstem Works and Norton Anti-virus 2011.

Open Office

Microsoft Works

Java

Real Player

And the Acer Programs that came with the computer.

Where in the world has all my disk space gone?

I start removing programs I don't use, 100 Meg here and 100 Meg there. I even run the Disk Defrag and Norton Speed Disk. That brings me up to maybe 2.5 Gig of free space.

This is truly a pain in the butt. Anyone have any ideas if this is Windows taking up all the free space?

Cat

 

[Stella_Omega]

it isn't Windows.
look for a disk space utility, like this one;

http://windirstat.info/

 

[fifty5]

What version of Doze are you running?

XP has a 'clean up' function: run 'My Computer'; select your hard disc (usually C; right click on it and pick Properties - the General tab has a button for 'Disk Cleanup'.

Also likely, Doze Updates: my laptop has 605,136,713 bytes used to un-install these - why would I want to?

Bottom line: my server has 1.5 terabytes of storage: cost about £100 (2 mirror drives so I'm not dependent on either one). Space is dead cheap. Buy yourself the cheapest desktop/tower box you can find and stick BIG drives into it. use that as a file server (Linux is a free OS and lots of folk will help). Once your data is on a different box, you can take out the hard drive from your work station, put in a bigger one, then re-install Doze (if you feel you have to). Even just re-format your existing one and re-install Doze. Instead of umpteen updates, you should have far fewer.

Of course, M$ counts your re-installs - with a limit of 5 IIRC. The real answer is to run Linux instead - most generic software (email, web browser, office and so on) works just fine without M$...

Then you can take back ownership from M$ to yourself.

Computers ought to be a pathway to freedom...

 

[Tyro999]

Last night as I was online I get a message from my computer complaining that it's hard drive is getting full. WHat the hell? I have a 16+ Gig Hard Drive so how can it be getting full?

[Snips]

Where in the world has all my disk space gone?

I start removing programs I don't use, 100 Meg here and 100 Meg there. I even run the Disk Defrag and Norton Speed Disk. That brings me up to maybe 2.5 Gig of free space.

This is truly a pain in the butt. Anyone have any ideas if this is Windows taking up all the free space?

Cat

FWIW, A similar installation load as yours, WinXP, two sets of MS Office (2000, & 2007 haven't ditched the old one yet), security stuff, etc, is taking up 16.9 GB of a nominal 40GB (38.2 GB formatted) hard drive. All of my data stuff is on an 80GB HD, split into six 12.4 GB logical drives, in an external USB drive enclosure.

I've been working/playing with "IBM flavor" wintel PCs since they first came on the market nearly 30 years ago. Nowadays, friends don't let friends try to get away with anything less than 80GBs. Most people I know are up to 200GB-400GBs (eg. 2-200 GB drives, makes for easy back-up.)

For the record, yes I'm new to the Lit BBs. but have been reading for about a year or so. Curiousity finally drove me to the BBs, with no intent to write. I am finding out how to be a better reader - e.g., avoid bashing comments if I venture into LW, tell y'all when I think you've done good, constructively comment where I can, and, above all to put a vote in when I think you've done good, better, or best.

Tyro

 

[Weird Harold]

Last night as I was online I get a message from my computer complaining that it's hard drive is getting full. WHat the hell? I have a 16+ Gig Hard Drive so how can it be getting full?

I started checking what all I have on my computer. Believe it or not I don't have much.

Maybe a dozen pictures. (Most of my pictures are either stored online or on disk.)

A couple of stories I'm working on.

Windows XP.

Norton SYstem Works and Norton Anti-virus 2011.

Open Office

Microsoft Works

Java

Real Player

And the Acer Programs that came with the computer.

Where in the world has all my disk space gone?

I start removing programs I don't use, 100 Meg here and 100 Meg there. I even run the Disk Defrag and Norton Speed Disk. That brings me up to maybe 2.5 Gig of free space.

This is truly a pain in the butt. Anyone have any ideas if this is Windows taking up all the free space?

Cat

Do a find files for *.log, *.tmp, *.bak, and ~*.*

For the most part, all those file types do is take up disk space. (I do have one *.log file on my system that is more than a simple log file -- for some reason my card game simulator uses it for for the user data and stats. )

Log files that are in use will tell you they can't be deleted, but they can be usually edited down to just current information.

If you don't periodically delete log files, temporary files and scracth files (those beginning with '~') they will take over your drive.

 

[SeaCat]

Thank you for the link. Nope, it isn't windows. Here's what's coming up on the scan:

Windows: 47.4% (6.2GB)
Program Files: 15.1% (2.0GB)
System Volume Information:13.7% (1.8 GB)
<Files>: 9.3% (1.2 GB)
Documents and settings: 8.7% (1.1 GB)
I386: 1.3% (439.8 MB)

And so on down the list to 0%.
Now I just have to figure out how to clean this sucker up.

Cat

 

[SeaCat]

So what is this Microsoft.net Framework?

Cat

 

[Weird Harold]

So what is this Microsoft.net Framework?

Cat

Google says:

Microsoft .NET Framework
NET Framework 4 mark the next generation of developer tools from Microsoft. Check it out! .NET Rocks! - My .NET Story Listen in as Carl and Richard pick the ...
www.microsoft.com/net/ - Cached

It might be included as part of a software package you use, but it is essentially pre-packaged routines for software developers and web-designers.

 

[RunningJib]

Sounds Like a virus

Last night as I was online I get a message from my computer complaining that it's hard drive is getting full. WHat the hell? I have a 16+ Gig Hard Drive so how can it be getting full?

I started checking what all I have on my computer. Believe it or not I don't have much.

Maybe a dozen pictures. (Most of my pictures are either stored online or on disk.)

A couple of stories I'm working on.

Windows XP.

Norton SYstem Works and Norton Anti-virus 2011.

Open Office

Microsoft Works

Java

Real Player

And the Acer Programs that came with the computer.

Where in the world has all my disk space gone?

I start removing programs I don't use, 100 Meg here and 100 Meg there. I even run the Disk Defrag and Norton Speed Disk. That brings me up to maybe 2.5 Gig of free space.

This is truly a pain in the butt. Anyone have any ideas if this is Windows taking up all the free space?

Cat

My son's computer was recently hit with diskdefragmenter. Nasty little bugger

 

[voluptuary_manque]

Not being a real geek-type bear this may be just bumbling in but is there a chance you might have picked up some malware? It's horrible stuff and anyone who infects someone else's computer needs to be infected. Yrsenia pestis would be a good beginning . . .

 

[TE999]

I carry the OS and a handful of other programs (PC Cleanup, Webroot AntiVirus, Adobe PDF, PC Confidential,etc.) on my hard drive...and no records, stories, data or pics. I load everything else on flash drives or my aux hard drive.

The Bear might be onto something...I think you've picked up some malware or a trojan horse somewhere that's hogging your disc space.

 

[Handley_Page]

I suggest you consider CCLeaner and Defragler.
The first will unscramble the Registry and the second goes rooting for contiguous space. Leave it running overnight !

And 16 GB is really not big enough these days.
There was a time when programmers were mindful of the memory taken; not since Hard drives got cheaper.

 

[jomar]

Is Windows set to set restore points? Seems like I read somewhere that restore points will eat up hard drive space.

 

[TxRad]

Is Windows set to set restore points? Seems like I read somewhere that restore points will eat up hard drive space.

This is very true as is the left over files from Windblows updates.

Wise Disk Cleaner and Wise Registry Cleaner are both free at download.com. Run the disk cleaner first and then the registry cleaner. For the average user, just run them the way they come. For advanced users, go through the setup and you can get even more out of both programs.

 

[harding]

WHat the hell? I have a 16+ Gig Hard Drive so how can it be getting full?

Did you really mean 16+ Gig, or 160?

16 Gig is nothing these days. Many of the programs on my laptop can take half a Gig on their own. Add a couple of pictures, other stuff, pretty soon you're talking about real problems.

 

[harding]

Oh yeah,

And why Open office AND Works? You should be able to decide which you want to use and completely remove the other one.

 

[Hotcappucino]

As Harding said, 16GB is nothing nowadays. I'd spring some money for a new hard drive. They are so cheap now, it would be worth it just so you don't have to worry about bumping up against the drive limit for a while. Sounds like you have an older machine, probably with an IDE (aka parallel ATA or PATA) interface , so you'll either need to get an IDE drive, or you can get a serial ATA (SATA) drive and buy a corresponding controller card or adapter. And most drives come with software (check the package) that will transfer the old hard drive image onto the new drive, so everything will work just the same.

 

[DesertPirate]

Run search for *.tmp and delete all the temp files found. You will be disgusted at the number.