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Printer error: disk is full

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One of our users is trying to print a large .pdf file, and gets an error message dialog box "There was an error writing to the printer. Disk is full."
Printing from IE 5.5/Adobe Acrobat 5, on Windows 98, to a HP Color LJ 5.
Any help would be appreciated.

25 replies

by lizzy

PDF files can be very large amounts of data. A work around would be to have the user only print a selection of the document at a time, say 10 pages. This could be a problem if the document is hundreds of pages long. If the printer is local, it maynot have enough memory to handle a document of that size. If it's a print server, the print server administrator or system administrator might be able to increase the size of the print queue.

What are the printer settings? RAW, spool job first and then print, begin printing as job spools, etc?

by marence

This is a 1 page file, generated from a Visio organizational chart.(90 mb!) It's a networked printer, the settings on the PC are RAW, start printing after first page spools.
Our sys admin still insists it's a workstation problem.

by machinetype

Try this:

1.Do a disk cleanup to remove temp files, recyle bin etc... Directions: Start->Programs->Accesories->System Tools->DiskCleanup....This should create space on your hard drive to cache the pages.

2.Try removing unused programs....Directions: Start->Settings->Control Panel...Doubleclick add/remove programs. You can sort by how often they are used so you know what you do not use very much, this is actually the first thing you should do because not having enogh disk space can lead to serious problems.

3.If you need a quick fix(but do not forget about creating disk space!!!!) you can go to
Start->Settings->Printers and right click your printer that you are printing to and choose properties then click on the details tab andhit the button "Spool Setings" then click on the button that says print directly to the printer. This will enable you to print but you will more than likley not be able to do anything else untill that job is done.

by marence

There's about 6 gigs free on the PC. Disk space is not an issue. We also can't remove unused apps because the configuration is standardized throughout the department.
Thanks for the quick answer, tho.

by marence

There's about 6 gigs free on the PC. Disk space is not an issue. We also can't remove unused apps because the configuration is standardized throughout the department.
Thanks for the quick answer, tho.

by timwalsh

What this is saying is that the disk where the spooler file is located doesn't have enough space to spool the file. This disk could be either the Win 98 computer if the HP is directly connected, or either the Win 98 machine and/or the print server if the HP is connected to a network.

The default location for spooled print jobs in Win 98 is \Windows\Spool\Printers and \WINNT\System32\Spool\Printers in NT4 and Win2K.

If the disk on which these locations exist is getting tight on space, you may need to either move other files elsewhere to create sufficient space or move the print spooler location to another disk.

Also be aware that a printer (especially color printers in my experience) may actually create a spooler file many timesthe size of the original file.

by marence

See above comments for space consideration answer. Thanks for the prompt answer.

by marence

See above comments for space consideration answer. Thanks for the prompt answer.

by nikki96

You may have 6G free on the disk, but that doesn't mean the computer will spool to it. Check your memory settings to insure that the virtual memory is set to USE that free space.
If you go to "my computer" then right-click on your C drive, you can pull up the properties. I am at work on my Win2K machine, so I can't tell you exactly where the setting is for Win98, but it's in that properties box somewhere. Look for the virtual memory settings to be sure they are set to use the right hard drive (if you have more than one drive or partition) and that the setting allow the full use of open disk space.

Also, if you have too much RAM allocated to the printer or to Adobe Acrobat, it may spool too large an amount of data. It needs a CONTINUOUSblock of data - defragging the HD takes care of that if the HD is big.

That's all I can think of. :)

~nikki~

by highlander718

Save the file on your local machine, and print it from there. I have this problem on a daily basis, and that's how I'm getting around it. It works.

by isys

What you are seeing is a system-generated error caused by using Acrobat Reader 5. It won't print reliably to a PCL printer. Download the Postscript driver and use that for printing Acrobat files. Also, it does no good to uninstall 5.0 and reinstall 4. And if you look around the Adobe tech support site you will see they are quite unapologetic about it.

by mmartinez108

Have you tried to print at a lower dpi? Like if you were trying to print at 600 dpi try 300 dpi. I know these other guys came up with some really good answers that I would've tried myself but maybe you should try something a little less obvious.
1. lesser dpi
2. can you print consently to the printer?
3. do you have know network problems?
4. is there a limit on how data can be transferred across your network? (hog bandwidth)
5. if you hooked up that computer to the printer directly via local printer port, would it print?
6. have you tried to print the same file from a different computer to the same network printer?
7. have you removed and reinstalled the printer?
8. have you tried to use the printer driver from the internet (hp website) instead of the driver you have been using? (whether is be from the cabs on the computer or the driver stored somewhere on the network. the driver may have used to install the printer may have become corrupt.)
8. have you tried to print to a different printer? I hope this helps you.

by shanghai sam

We've tried it all except printing locally - physically impossible. The file prints fine to our 8100 (non-color) printers.

by jeremyrem

try editing your spool cache in your printer settings, or just turn it off.

the printers spool cache is not big enought to hold all the data

by steve regner

The settings are going to be on the server. The print spooler that is running out of room is the spooler on the server. Memory on the printer is not an issue because the print server will send data to the printer as the buffer clears. Disk space on the server is the issue. I am going to assume that the server is NT based. If it is not then my answer is not valid. If the Spooler for the server and the memory swap file for the server are on the same drive (default for both is C) then the server can run out of free space to spool the job. On thing we have done on our print servers is move the spooler folders to another drive. The spooler folder location can be changed under print server properties (win2k).

by gigelul

I had this problem.
Try to launch this print job from an workstation with more resources ( more memmory not more space on HDD).

by marence

We ended up using an HP LJ 8550 to get it to print. And the sys admin is Still saying it's a workstation issue! Thanks to all who tried to help.

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