Amazulu

I am having a problem with my laptop (Windows XP) where the hard drive has no spare disk space even though I have very little data on it. On the 40Gb C: drive I only have the OS, IE7, Outlook plus a few other apps than can not take up more than a few Gb. If I delete some software to free up some disk space, within a short space of time this space has been taken up and I have 0Gb spare. I have Kapersky anti-virus software installed and it cannot find a virus (my initial idea on why this is happening). I'm going to try and defrag the hard drive to see if this will solve it.

Any ideas?

DrWho

Virus definitions bang up to date...? Have you looked to see if anything is filling it up...? You have made sure you're viewing hidden files and folders...? Start there and see what you find...

Amazulu

The AV software is up to date. I've done a deep scan and it found no virus. I've turned on hidden files but I'm not sure what to look for.

DrWho

Use explorer and have a look at the root of your C drive... look for any extremely large files... anything with a CHK extension and there's likely serious problems with the hard disk... make sure you've a good backup... If there's no seriously large files there then you want to look at the directories and see how large each is... try the root first...

worzel

Try posting this on The Lab sub-forum. There are lots of helpful / clever people on there.

http://britishexpats.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=99

NigelWaring

Some laptops, like Acer, split the hard drive into two, C: and D:. C: might be full and D: empty. They are really designed to have the system on C: and the data on D:.

Timber Floor Au

From what I have read, its XP and the 138 GB rule.

Something to do with FAT32 and SP1 and SP2 on older XP machines.

Ste

ex_exile

1) Clear your IE7 internet cache - this can get huge
2) Find and install a copy of treesize, this will allow you to see which folders are taking up large amounts of your disc space, chances are they are temp files which can be deleted.

Have you ran the disc clean up wizard?

Amazulu

Please could you elaborate Ste?

Amazulu

I'll have a go with your ideas.

I have run the disk cleanup utility.

ex_exile

This is nothing to do with your problem if you only see one disc (C)

Timber Floor Au

Was reading this.

http://www.eggheadcafe.com/software/...its-small.aspx

Also was on fone to our PC fella, when I was reading your thread and asked him, he reckons it could be a FQD Hard Drive ( normal Reply ) or indeed a SP1 or SP2 issue.

i.e. get it.

Try booting in safe mode. Press F8 when you boot, then goto Control Panel, System, Device Manager. Make sure no Explamation Marks are there.

Then check FreeHard Drive Space.

Ste

ex_exile

NO! dont do this

jimmyd4006

Have you done a system health check on your laptop, if not open internet explorer, type in safety.live.com..a microsoft site, down load full scanner..you may have to allow popups from microsoft..it will tell you, then run full system scan. This may take a few hours, as it checks for virus's, registry problems etc on your laptop. this is a free scan, best of luck

Timber Floor Au

Regarding Tree Size, wouldnt a quick visit to DOS help ?

goto Start then Run, type CMD.

to get to C prompt on its own, type cd/ cpl of times until you get C:

Then type dir/w/o/p and check the size of each directory

Make a note of MASSIVE ones, then hit space bar to scroll down.

Then let us all know lol

Ste