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| Thread ID: 53913 | 2005-01-31 02:15:00 | Windows Update is eating my hard drive... 100MB free? | Atreides (7000) | Press F1 |
| Post ID | Timestamp | Content | User | ||
| 319592 | 2005-01-31 02:15:00 | I have Windows XP, I think SP1, on a 600MHz 128 MB of RAM PC with a 10GB hard drive in two partitions; 3.5GB for Windows and a 6GB partition for data and most programs. Last night I noticed windows Update running in the system tray downloading an update. A while later it was at 60% complete and my free hard drive space had gone down from about 600MB to 200MB. By the time the update was at 80% I only had 100MB left, so I tried to cancel it. I couldn't see how and my computer was really hurting from lack of space - it needs the swap space cos it's only got 128 MB of RAM. So I pulled the network cable out. The download kept going! It was strange - 80% to 86% with no internet! Anyway, I restarted the computer and I was back to 600MB of space. Weird, but no problem. Now it's happening again. I had changed the Auto-update settings from "Automatically download updates and notify me when they are ready to install" to "Notify me when there are updates available to download", so it just told me about the updates (Service Pack 2, by the way, supposedly only 70MB so I don't know how it hogged half a gig yesterday) without downloading them. I went to www.windowsupdate.com (http://www.windowsupdate.com) and downloaded about 10MB of other critical but non-SP2 updates, and my free disk space is down to 150 MB again! Possibly it isn't Windows Update doing it, but it seems like it probably is. Has anyone had any experiance of this happening to them or any idea how I can get my space back again? The Disk Cleanup program only managed to free about 100K, and I've cleared my internet caches, Recycle Bin, and such. |
Atreides (7000) | ||
| 319593 | 2005-01-31 02:21:00 | Try this http://www.ccleaner.com clean all the trash off your hard drive. You might get some space back. I would get another hard drive, the 1 u have will fill up quick. And also some more ram. |
Speedy Gonzales (78) | ||
| 319594 | 2005-01-31 02:38:00 | I have another PC that I use for most stuff - 2.8GHz 1GB of RAM, 80GB HDD etc. I got this computer second-hand off Trademe just to do file-sharing stuff (that's what Partition 2 is for, 1.6GB still free). Given that it's doing P2P stuff it really needs to be up to date and secure, so that's why I was running windows update. I don't really see why I should suddenly have lost half a Gigabyte on C by running windows update. Indeed, windows is taking up 3 GB on C. Running CCleaner didn't make a dent in the used space. Still only 150 MB free, but thanks anyway. |
Atreides (7000) | ||
| 319595 | 2005-01-31 02:47:00 | If u use hibernation on that 10gb turn it off, that'll take up space and also turn off system restore. If you think you dont need it. | Speedy Gonzales (78) | ||
| 319596 | 2005-01-31 02:58:00 | Hibernation only uses 150 MB, and even that only when you actually Hibernate . What I'm concerned about is the fact that I did have space, but now it's gone . Windows Update ate it . |
Atreides (7000) | ||
| 319597 | 2005-01-31 03:05:00 | Yes! That was it! System Restore! I had a look at System Restore and there was one point yesterday and about 5 today - no wonder space was gone. I turned System Restore off to clear the old points, which got me back to 550Mb on C! I've turned it back on but with the Max on C 200MB and max on D 250. Thanks for your very speedy help, Speedy. |
Atreides (7000) | ||
| 319598 | 2005-01-31 05:03:00 | No worries . :) I just had the same prob with tmp files. I think it was stupid Zonealarm - the security suite version. It refused to work, even after I downloaded it twice. The 1st time it must have been corrupt. The 2nd time, it just refused to install. And took my cpu usage to over 50% lol. Then the times I had tried to install it (about 4), it created glb tmp files. Which ate 11gb of the c drive here lol... Until I managed to find out where these temp files were, and deleted them. Before then my hdd went way down to 633 mb! from a 20gb main hdd. And before then, I couldnt defrag coz 633 mb was only available and defrag needed 15% (it needed just over 3gb, just to defrag properly)! BUT all is up and running OK now. And before now I also had to kill system restore, coz it was using around 2 gb. BUT thats ok now too. |
Speedy Gonzales (78) | ||
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