Hard Drive Space Fluxuations

Earth · **Posted:** May 24th, 2009, 12:51 pm

Recently I have been cleaning up my hard drive and i have noticed that my HD space has been going from ~15GB free to ~6Gb free.
Anyone know why this has been happening?
~Earth

Adbot · **Posted:** May 24th, 2009, 12:51 pm

King Kulla · **Posted:** May 24th, 2009, 1:34 pm

I know this might be an obvious question, but have you recently installed any new apps that might take up that much space?

Earth · **Posted:** May 24th, 2009, 4:18 pm

whoops,i forgot to say that i have NOT installed any programs that take up that much space. :oops:

it also goes from more to less or vice versa every time i restart.

Al3X · **Posted:** May 24th, 2009, 8:42 pm

Hit Start > Run >type %temp% > delete everything in that folder.

See if that frees up any space, it's basically a big cookies folder on your computer. Ive freed up 4+ gigs of space cleaning it before.

edit: some files may not delete, it happens.

And have you emptied your recycle bin?

Shane · **Posted:** May 24th, 2009, 9:52 pm

How much ram do you have? Also how many programs on startup?

My guess is that it's something to do with the page file which by default unless specified is managed by the OS. It is free to expand and contract under this. The ranges you've mentioned are a little high.

Earth · **Posted:** May 25th, 2009, 9:22 am

Shane wrote:

How much ram do you have? Also how many programs on startup?

My guess is that it's something to do with the page file which by default unless specified is managed by the OS. It is free to expand and contract under this. The ranges you've mentioned are a little high.

i have 1GB of ram and ~10-15 startup programs. my computer teacher said to google fixMBR,would that help?
i also use ccleaner,could that be causing it?

Adbot · **Posted:** May 25th, 2009, 9:22 am

Pfkninenines · Global Moderator 12/4/08

Shadow copies / System Restore, plain and simple.

if you're in Vista or XP, go to My Computer and right click on one of your HDDs and select properties. Click Disk Cleanup, which should be displayed under the pie chart. After it spools everything up, click the second tab and click "Remove Shadow Copies / System Restore Points" and it will remove all but the most current one.

Depending on which OS you have, you can set the maximum that these take up on your HDD. I don't really remember off hand, but supposing this is something you wish to change, let me know.

Tal Ormanda · **Posted:** May 26th, 2009, 1:02 am

If it's Vista I vote for system restore sucking up the drive.

Earth · **Posted:** May 29th, 2009, 12:59 pm

Tal Ormanda wrote:

If it's Vista I vote for system restore sucking up the drive.

I clear that out monthly.

jrdgames · **Posted:** May 31st, 2009, 8:58 pm

You forgot to mention which windows OS you are using.

Have you ran the Disk Cleanup wizard yet?
Do you usually have more space when you start your pc and then before you shut it down/restart it you have less space?
If yes then you are probably running a program, or several programs, that are taking up to much RAM and overflowing over your HDD although this is not likely with the amount of RAM that you have, unless maybe you are running vista.

If you have any beta programs or new programs that haven't been around for long then one of them could have a memory leak, although that would usually cause crashes.

Are you sure that you aren't infected with some virus? Or if you have an unsecured wireless network, that someone isn't using your pc as a temporary file host?

You aren't doing any video or sound editing before you notice that your space is running low are you?

Earth · **Posted:** June 1st, 2009, 12:48 pm

jrdgames wrote:

You forgot to mention which windows OS you are using.

Have you ran the Disk Cleanup wizard yet?
Do you usually have more space when you start your pc and then before you shut it down/restart it you have less space?
If yes then you are probably running a program, or several programs, that are taking up to much RAM and overflowing over your HDD although this is not likely with the amount of RAM that you have, unless maybe you are running vista.

If you have any beta programs or new programs that haven't been around for long then one of them could have a memory leak, although that would usually cause crashes.

Are you sure that you aren't infected with some virus? Or if you have an unsecured wireless network, that someone isn't using your pc as a temporary file host?

You aren't doing any video or sound editing before you notice that your space is running low are you?

vista
yes
Its secure
no

jrdgames · **Posted:** June 1st, 2009, 12:55 pm

Hmm, have you tried google searching your problem yet?

Earth · **Posted:** June 1st, 2009, 2:01 pm

no,I thought I'd ask you guys first before spending time googling.

jrdgames · **Posted:** June 2nd, 2009, 8:06 pm

Has the space been changing randomly multiple times in one boot up session or does it usually only fluctuate once per boot up session?

Do you know how the space gets freed up? Do you have to run CCleaner or do you do something else or does it free up by itself on a restart?

I hope we can find the source of your problem.

Earth · **Posted:** June 4th, 2009, 6:19 am

I noticed it again,right after I ran the program NTREGOPT that Paul recommended in his article,could that be it?