Disk space problem

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When I logged on today, I received an error that I was low on disk space. I have 120gb, and had used about 80gb so I didn’t know what the problem was. However, when I looked at the device manager, I am getting conflicting information. No changes have occurred on my hard drive, no additional files or apps. PLEASE HELP.

Thanks……see attachment.

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Kathy,
Any chance you can get a slightly larger screenshot? I don’t know about anyone else but I can’t really make out the numbers in it.

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Better picture attached.

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It looks like something has used up all of the disk space on your system. If you haven’t done anything to cause that, then you need to check for a hacker breaking into your system. I had a similar problem a couple of years ago when my firewall failed and a hacker broke in and was using my hard drive to store and distribute very large video files. If you don’t know how to look for this, they you probably should get an expert. When I tried to remove the backdoors the hacker put on my system, I ended up crashing Windows to the point where I had to completely reformat the hard disk and start over.

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…I have 120gb, and had used about 80gb…

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[/indent] I want to make sure I understand your question. In round number terms, the screenshots say that about 40 gig is NOT partitioned. Did you do THAT on purpose? As to the 80 gig being almost used up, you should run some nastyware scans with AdAware and Spybot to see if Legare is on target. Aside from that a fairly easy starting point would be to search the C: drive looking for “large” files to see if you can find something. It could be that there’s “stuff” in your temporary internet files or somewhere like that, left from a crash or someplace you visited, or ….

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I checked all of my files………and NO, I did not partition the drive on purpose. After I posted, I found out that it had been partitioned when it was installed this spring. Unfortunately, I have never partitioned a drive, so I am about to learn something new. Any pointers?

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Ever since I started using such a product years ago, I wouldn’t be without one. My current choice is Acronis Disk Director Suite as you might see in several threads in The Lounge. For quite some time I used Symantec PartitionMagic 8.0 until it was acquired by Symantec. I figure either one to be a worthwhile investment for long-term ease of hard drive work.

One suggestion most of us make BEFORE starting to use (or learn) such a product, be sure you ALWAYS have a full system backup, and that’s another subject you can find the suggestions for with a Lounge search.

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A couple of if’s
If you are using XP-Pro and if you have unallocated space on the drive you can change the drive to “Dynamic” and allocate more space, it is an undocumented feature of XP-PRO. Very much a feature of Server 2003. I slipped a new slave into my system and tried it, in my opinion it is great.
There is an article at http://vlaurie.com/computers2/Articles/harddrive3.htm%5B/url%5D

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…it is an undocumented feature of XP-PRO…

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[/indent] Look here: How To Use Disk Management to Configure Dynamic Disks in Windows XP or search XP Pro’s HELP for “dynamic disk” (plenty of coverage there). Like other areas of this magnitude, be careful!

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I stand corrected in my use of the word “undocumented feature of XP-PRO” I should have written “little known” feature.

You link certainly clarifies the post.

Thank you,

Ted

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