Low disk space on windows partition!!!

Irish_Tom

Irish_Tom

Irish_Tom

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Joined
18 Oct 2002
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Lo all,

I have windows XP home installed on my C: drive. The partition is 4.5 GB in size and it's telling me I only have 200mb of free space left. The windows folder is just under 2GB, the Program Files folder is just under 400mb and the Documents and Settings folder is about 500mb in size.

The scratch disk is on a separate partition, most of my software is on another partition and My Documents is on yet another partition. I can't see where 2 almost 2GB has gone on the windows partition.

I can't install any more programs and the ones I have installed keep crashing!

Has anyone heard of this before? Any idea as to what's taking up all that space?

I really don't want to have to do a format.

Cheers

Panzer
 
Search couldn't find it even with hidden files turned on and I can't see it anywhere, even with hidden files set to 'show' in folder options. Where exactly is it on your rig?

Cheers for the fast reply!

Panzer
 
Whoops, it's actually called ntuser.dat. :o (That's what I get for staying up all night ;)) It's in C:\Documents and Settings\myusername

I haven't a clue what it does but this installation of Windows is about 4 years old now so that might have something to do with it. I assume it's a system file of some sort. I ran across it when backing up some files recently.
 
Thanks for the replies guys.

Billy, I found it but it was only 3mb :s

Ricochet J, forgot to mention that I tried using partition magic to take some space off my software partition and tack it on the end of the windows partition but it wouldn't let me increase the size of the windows partition. It just said that the maximum allowed space was the same size as the current allocation....

Thanks Sam, I'll give it a go and let you know what it says!

Panzer
 
The swap file is on it's own separate partition, It shouldn't interfere with the windows partition at all...

I've run the file analysis thing using TuneUp and it's reporting exactly the same as what I had... 2.69GB used up in files so 1.71 GB has just disappeared...

:confused:

This is really starting to bug me lol... looks like I might have to do that format after all...

thanks again for your suggestions

*edit* I've just checked the swap file stuff (just to be on the safe side) and while there isn't one set to the C: drive, it does say 1637mb free on C:

This is getting even more weird.*edit*

Panzer
 
I would install Ccleaner, then use it to empty the recycle bin - should free some space up.

You may also want to try deleting files from %tmp% (just run that command), and also check %windir%\temp\ for anything that you can delete, whilst in the Windows folder (guessing you're on XP) you can delete the contents of the "Downloaded Installations" folder - never caused me any problems.

Scort.
 
BillytheImpaler said:
I haven't a clue what it does but this installation of Windows is about 4 years old now so that might have something to do with it. I assume it's a system file of some sort. I ran across it when backing up some files recently.
Click to expand...

That, my friend, is your registry database :/

Burnsy
 
Thanks scort, I don't use the recycle bin but I did delete the contents of those folders. Still hasn't really helped. I think the only thing I can do is a full format. So I'll see you all in a few hours :(

Panzer
 
How many user profiles are on the machine? Are you sure one of those isn't taking up the space?

You Windows partition is almost the same size as mine:

Documents and Settings < 100meg
Program Files 1gig
Windows 1.06gig

Partition has just over 3.6gig free.

Scort.

Edit: forgot to say, even if you don't use the recycle bin, Ccleaner can still empty temp files from aroudn the system.
Edit 2: Each drive may still have files in the "RECYCLER" folder (usually hidden as it is a protected OS folder), see if you can delete these, files are named somthing like S-1-5-21-117609710-2000478354-725345543-500.
 
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Just one user profile I just ran Ccleaner, it removed a fair few temp files but still not where near 1.7GB worth :(

Something must have gone very wrong somewhere, I'm just going to do the format, I guess a fresh install of everything wouldn't hurt anyway.

Cheers again for the help.

Panzer
 
Could be that you have a hibertantion file on the drive....

Control Panel > Power Options > Hibernate - untick Enable hibernation.

Scort.
 
1. Look for the drwatson.log file.
This file can get huge if drwatson gets stuck in a loop. It can easily hit 2Gb / 4Gb depending on your max file size.

2. What size are your disk clusters? If 32K/64K your diskspace could be eaten up by inefficient clusters.
 
If you plan to do that, you may want to look at creating an install disk with nlite, you can add some really handy features and tweaks to the install of Windows, and also remove things you don't use (i.e drivers and useless applications).

You could also add the RyanVM hotfix pack, saves having to Windows update after install.

Just a thought :)

Scort.
 
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Frank, I've looked in the Drwatson folder and it's empty :o

My disk cluster size is 4kb according to chkdsk...

I'm just looking at nlite now. Does seem like a good idea :)

Cheers

Panzer
 
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