Boy do I need help!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[gittyup]

I have a 20 GIG IBM desktar in my PC. This machines doesn't have a lot of software installed nor do we download alot of files. Anyway, a few days ago, my wife said the machine was acting funny. Today, I looked around and noticed that all but 880megs of my 20 gigs was used. WHAT! Anyway, I looked around and I just don't see that many files. SO, I decided to do some disk cleanup. I removed all temp internet files, all unwanted apps and some temporary downloaded files. All of this should amount to a few hundred megs. I then rebooted. After rebooting, I now have 400 megs free. WHAT THE HELL AGAIN! ANy suggestions. This machine was build about 8 months ago, by the way. Thanks....

 

[Migroo]

That doesnt sound too good :/

Hmm.. Have you set the Windows swap file?

Some more details on your PC would be useful. Especially how much RAM you have installed.

 

[bacillus]

have you enabled view all files?
if you're using ME then it's probably due to system restore being enabled!

 

[gittyup]

MSI K7T Pro2A - MB
Duron 800 - CPU
256 PC100 - RAM
WIN2k Pro - OS


I have not done anything with the sawp file.

 

[Migroo]

Perhaps windows is creating a -massive- swap file.

Try opening the swap settings and manually setting them. Limit the size of your swap file, 256mb should be enough I think (can someone clarify this?).

 

[gittyup]

Swap file is 382mb.

 

[Commish]

Have you run a virus scan with the latest dat files? Could be something in there causing it to mis-report file sizes.

 

[Sir Fredrick]

Do a file search for files greater than 20MB...it'll show you what files are taking up the most space, you may recognize some of them as junk.

 

[gittyup]

Commish

I have Norton installed with the up to date definitions list and no viruses found.


Sir Frederick

How would you do that?

 

[audiophan]

I haven't used 2k, but how to search according to size:

Go to your windows search function, in filename type in an asterick: *
In advanced, or somewhere there should be an option to specify file size. Type in 20 mb or whatever size you want.

If it only accepts kb, then 1024 x mb = kb

 

[RSMemphis]

click on search options (under Search Now button)
flag the size check box.
Enter the filesize.
Click search now.

 

[Migroo]

<< Swap file is 382mb. >>



That should be ok. Is that the size it is at the moment, or the maximum size?

Its important not to let Windows manage the settings Its just greedy.

 

[Woody419]

Check to see what size of drive Windows reports. You know it is a 20GB, but your machine may think it is some other size.
or...
You could have gotton a obscure version of a virus that maybe just makes huge files when you unzip them:
" This zip file problem is similar to an early web page trick some people used: They'd build an infinitely-recursive table on a web page: The web page would contain commands to create a table within a table, and then would re-execute the same code over and over until the PC's memory or system resources were used up."Fred Langa newsletter 7/26/01.
or...
Your hdd is going bad and you have lots and lots of bad sectors.

 

[Sir Fredrick]

Start | Search | For Files or Folders
(or just hit Winkey + F)

Search For: *.*

Look in: Local Harddrives (C

You should see a "Search options" link under the search now button. Click on it.

Click on the "Size" checkbox.

Make sure that "At least" is selected from the drop down box.

Type in 20000

Click on Search Now.

 

[gittyup]

Found it. In the AIM dir, there was some type of a AIM temp cache file. It was huge. I forget to get the exact name. Anyway, I am now only using 2 gig. Thanks for all the help.

 

[Migroo]

Cool, glad its sorted out.

I'm glad I dont use AIM either

 

[Sir Fredrick]

Yikes, that's a pretty impressive screw up on the part of AIM. Glad it's figured out though.

 

[Cuular]

Hmm I would have opened that file with AIM to see what kind of binary images my wife was looking at to use 18GB of file space.