Why Does My C Drive Keep Filling Up?

[glennmac]

I keep getting messages that my C drive is full and it is driving me nuts because I can't figure out what the heck is filling it up.

I have an IBM laptop that is partitioned into a 2 gig C drive and a 2 gig D drive. I have no idea what partitioning is for, why it exists, or how to unpartition. Maybe its not even related to my problem

I keep getting these messages to use Disk Cleanup because my C drive is full. I get them every minute or so. This has been going on for months. I use Disk Cleanup every day, but there is nothing left to clean up. I have uninstalled 100's of megs of application programs that my firm installed or that came with the computer to create space, and with a week all 2 gigs are showing full again. I have moved as much as I know how to this so-called D drive. No matter what I delete this C drive fills up at a phenomenal rate.

I am not downloading anything (intentionally) and I have never installed a program. The only thing I really do is surf, mainly here.

When I click on Properties to count the megs of all the stuff on my C drive it doesnt add up to even 1 gig. Furthermore, the capacity numbers I get from clicking Properties dont match the capacity numbers that show on the bottom of the windows when I open individual Windows subfolders.

There is a Temporary Internet folder that ends up with millions of cookies. I delete everything in this folder, and when I click Properties, it shows 93 megs in this "empty" folder.

My systems people at work, who arent real systems people, cant explain this to me. They want to erase and reinstall the whole thing, which is ok by me, except that I expect this same phenomenon will keep happening.

This is extremely frustrating. I have to give a Powerpoint presentation in Orlando on Friday and I can see this C drive full message popping up in the middle of my presentation, as it has in the past.

Does anyone have any idea what the heck is going on with my computer. Thanks in advance.



<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1>Edited by glennmac on 08/02/01 01:11 AM (server time).</FONT></P>

 

[Alan L.]

I am befuddled about your problem. I'm a little confused about all of the stuff you have on drive C taking up less than one meg though. Windows itself will take up 150 to 300 meg depending what components are installed.

Be sure you empty the recycle bin, as files don't actually get deleted until you empty them from the recycle bin (generally).

Cookies are usually real small. Its hard to see how they could fill up a 2 gig drive.

The reason your hard drive is divided into "partitions" is that the older versions of Windows could only see 2 gig partitions. With Windows 98 and later you would be able to make the whole hard drive a single 4 gig partition. You would have to erase everything and start over from scratch however. Most of the time if you have gremlins, this will fix the problem. For the Windows gurus, you will be considered a wuss for doing so, as cleaning up and starting over rather than finding the real problem is the sissy way out, but you would at least get the one partition out of the deal.

Something I might try is to go to "find files" under the start button and look for files modified today. This might indicate what files are using up the space and might lead you to the culprit.

Alan L., TX

 

[glennmac]

Alan, thanks. I meant they all didnt add up to one gig--and I edited that post and this to so reflect.

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1>Edited by glennmac on 08/02/01 01:12 AM (server time).</FONT></P>

 

[GlueGuy]

Glennmac,

In addition to what Alan says, when you get to the "Find Files" window, one of the options is to look for files bigger than "X", where X is specified in kilobytes.

You can delete files till you're blue in the face and hardly make a dent if they are small files. What you want to do is find the "big puppies". Start out looking for any files that are bigger than, oh, 5,000 KB (AKA 5 MB). When the search finishes, you should have a list of the real culprits.

Be careful if you got to delete some of these, as the really big files (> 100MB possibly) could be things like the system swap file. Pay close attention to the timestamps and access times. If you've got something really large that hasn't been touched in a year or so, you can probably delete it without worry. Just try to check what it's used for before you trash it.

The GlueGuy

 

[DocHeb]

Run Scandisk on your c:/ drive by clicking START/RUN/ and enter "Scandisk". Choose "thorough" scan for the first time. Let it fix any errors (or make sure the automatic correction box is checked) - I've never made an "undo" file so I don't worry about this if it pops up.

If you are using Internet Explorer, you can get some space "on-the-fly" by clicking TOOLS/INTERNET OPTIONS/DELETE FILES, and choose DELETE OFFLINE CONTENT. This will delete cached Internet material on your disk.

You can also get more space by right-clicking on the Recycle Bin and EMPTY RECYCLE BIN.

I wouldn't be able to run my computer without a good utilities program. I use Norton SystemWorks v3.0. It cleans up the disks, defragments the hard drive, and corrects the innumerable Windows errors that accumulate. It also has an excellent Anti-Virus program that has saved me from 12 different virus attacks (most recently the "CodeRed virus"). It will find unused and duplicate files, make your swap file and Internet cache the appropriate size, and in general keep everything running smoothly. If you have a CD-ROM you can run the program without installing it on your computer (there would be problems since you're running out of space).

 

[Boner]

Glenmac, I don't know what OS your running, but I will speak in Win95 terms. The first thing I would get a handle on is your swap file. This is a virtual memory file that windows needs to function. By default this file can expand and contract (mainly expand) as windows sees neccesary. You can put a limit on how big this file can be. I usually make it 2.5 times the amount of ram that you have.

You say when you do a "properties" on your drive, the number is shows doesnt add up to total drive space. the way it's "adding" these files depends on the bytes per cluster your drive is formatted in. This also goes back to which OS your running.

I hate typing. If you want, you can call me @ 504-679-0697 from 5:00A - 1:00P Central and I will be happy to help you out.

-Ben

 

[ddl]

The other reason for partitioning your hard drive is to increase speed in finding files on your hard drive. Large drives can really slow down a computer by taking so long to find a file. By dividing the drive in to two parts, the finding of files is made easier.

One thing to check is to see if you have an automatic backup function in some program working. For example if you use a program, a backup function makes a copy and you have two large programs instead of one. I would install Norton Utilities and use it to maintain your hard drives, works great on finding and removing unused files and programs.

Dan l

 

[Anonymous Poster]

Two things that may help:

(1) Make sure that your temp subdirectory is empty; if you
don't shut down properly, files in that subdirectory that
would otherwise automatically be deleted won't.

In general, the temp subdirectory should always be
empty. At the very least, it should have no files that
have a TMP extension.

(2) Move your temp directory to the D: drive, and also have
your swap file on the D: drive. When you're running
Windows, temporary files are created; same when you
print. Having the temp and working files on your D: drive
will help keep your C: drive as empty as possible.

 

[StoneHeartFarm]

Glenmac,

When is the last time you updated your anti-virus software? Norton, Symantec, Mcafree all have websites that let you download the latest patches, fixes and data files for your virus scan engine.

Frankly, filling up with cookies isn't normal. You can bet that if your drive wasn't partitioned, the other 2 megs would be filling up too.

You might want to check on those updates. It's possible your virus software, even if purchased within the last 2 years, will have an out of date engine, but the vendor's websites should tell you that. My Mcafree that I bought just last year, is just new enough to handle the last batch of data files that I downloaded when the virus warning thread hit TBN. So, next time I'll probably have to get a new engine. /w3tcompact/icons/crazy.gif

SHF

 

[looch]

I agree. The first thing I check on a user's machine when they are running out of space is the C:\temp folder. You should be able to delete the contents of this folder without ramifications. You might get am error message to the effect of "cannot delete filename, file in use" or "sharing violation." This is ok, just means that your system is using that file right now and won't let you delete it.
Another thing is e-mail. If you are using Microsoft Outlook and have Personal Folders installed, all your e-mail is being stored in a file (yes, one file - scary eh?) with the extension .pst. These things can get out of hand really quickly. If you use Outlook, (not Outlook Express) let us know and I'll provide instructions for reducing the size of this file.