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Vanishing HDD Space

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8 replies

by kenny May 9, 2001 last reply May 10, 2001

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I have Win 98 installed in my HDD with a few other applications. This is what's happening... everytime I go to check the HDD space I notice that I'm loosing about 2mb, each time. Does anybody have any suggestions as to what might be causing this problem??
-Ken

8 replies

by mphoffar May 9, 2001

I'm assuming you're already doing things like clearing temporary internet files and temp directories or all it's old garbage.

You might want to try to set a permanent swap file instead of letting windows manage it.

...or are you saying your total disk space (used and unused) is decreasing by 2 MB

Mark

by kenny May 10, 2001

This answer was very helpful, thanks.
-Ken.

by some guy in seattle May 9, 2001

If you are running in an environment with lots of small-sized files then each one of these files could be occupying larger sectors on the disk than it needs. You may want to look into changing to FAT32 if you haven't done it already.

If you or your system is constantly modifying data, then there could be fragmentation problems. Run scandisk, then defrag.

Of course, don't discount a virus doing odd things either. Run an up-to-date virus scanner.

Another check is to check the size of your recycle bin. There is an option to limit the size of your recycle bin, but this is a percentage of the entire drive, not an MB value. If you have lots of files deleted, you can set a smaller percentage size or to delete files immediately instead of putting them in the recycle bin.

Hope that helps,

by kenny May 10, 2001

Thanks for your response. It was very helpful.
-Ken.

by gfrost May 9, 2001

Dear Ken:
First set a figure for you swap files don't let windows manage this for you. Next make sure you clean up the cache files that accumulate when accessing the internet. This is very true of the infamous IE-Explorer.Also watch how you are accepting cookies if you spend a lot of time "cruising the Web".Last I strongly reccomend getting and using Norton System Works on your sytem for maintenance. Regularly defrag and optimize your hard drive and use the Registry Checker for the windows registry. It is a superior product for this than any tool available from MS! The one accessories tool in Win 98 you do wish to use is found under ACC/System Info then on the tool bar choose system file check, have your Win 98 CD ready. If you have installed/uninstalled software or just enough time has passed it will find some files missing or corrupted.
Sincerely,
Greg Frost
GLoLinuear Computer Systems Inc.