Topic: Full hard drive problem

[Clive]

Just right click on it and delete files.  After they are deleted repeat again.  "Protected files" will then come up and they can be deleted too.

[Clive]

I've changed your pic for you Dave! Is Bart OK?  

[chorleydave]

Hi, Nige.  

This really is a strange one.  Has your friend had this hard drive from new?  Has it ever shown (around) 40GB?  My first thought is that someone has tried to create a partition 10/30 and it has gone wrong and lost the 30GB partition.  In fact (if I owned my own house) I would bet my house on it.

How old is the computer?  Some older motherboards will only support hard drives up to a certain size unless you upgrade (flash) the Bios.

Finally (and this is very doubtful) you mentioned Norton.  Is this just Norton Anto-Virus or is it the full works.  Many years ago, when a 1.7GB hard drive was about the biggest you could get, I installed Norton Utilities on a disk with 1.2GB free and it took up nearly 800MB.  When I had looked through all the options, I discovered that a feature was enabled that optimised Swap File usage, and it had created a 450MB Swap File.

I would first check that the computer supports a 40GB hard drive and, if it does, check for a lost partition.

[Nige]

Hi folks and glad we're back.
OK, My friends computer is 12 months old and hasn't been 'messed' with by anyone. It's never been online, the Disc is 37.something gig and not partitioned, the only things that have gone on to it are games which his wife plays (420meg) programs, operating system and his files and folders.
Up until a week and a half ago, he had 10 gig showing as being used space with 27 gig freespace.
He uses it mainly for photo editing his family and holiday photo's, of which he has many....On checking all his files and folders with windows explorer, we could still only come up with about 10 gig of used space...When right clicking on C drive properties, it's now showing that the entire C drive is full, he has less than 1% of free space. His bin is allocated 10%. I wouldn't have thought that it was Adware and Spyware choking it up as he's not online, would the general opinion be that it could be a virus?
Nige

[Sandra]

If its not storing the missing gigs in nortons protected files then I would think that somehow its storing them in the working folder of his photo editing program, which should be a temprorary folder.
If you open his photo editing program and look in the preferences or settinngs it may give you the working folder location.
If you cant find it in there then it will probably be in a folder inside C\program files\name of editing prog  

[Nige]

Thanks Sandra,
   What I'll do is pop down there again now and re-check everything. I'm no expert and could easily have missed something. Just wished this was England, then I'd tell him to take it into a shop for examination.
Nige

[Sandra]

So where are you then Nige  

[Nige]

South of Spain, just inland from the coast.
Nige

[Sandra]

I would rather have your weather and no computer shops handy than be here in the cold and wet surrounded by them    

I do do house calls if youre ever really stuck, for the price of a return airline ticket and a couple of weeks of food, wine and accomodation
     

[Nige]

May just take you up on that Sandra  
Back shortly

[joudi]

Have you tried to check if his computer is set to another/or others user too?

[Tony]

If that don't work,

you know what I would do:

Burn his "My Docs"  folder and all his photo's to disk, [always handy to have a back up on Cd's]

That should leave him with, about 5/6GB OS and programs on C: drive.....plus this missing 27GB  of harddrive, allocated to lord knows what.

Partition C: Drive with Partition Magic [idiot proof]

Once installed go to Tasks  > Create New Partition > hive 27GB off C:Drive. This will leave C:Drive as a  10GB Primary Active Partition, plenty big enough for the 5/6GB of OS and programs.  

Once you have made the new 27GB logical partition, reformat it, that way it will give you back your 27GB.

Once you see how easy it is, I dare say he may want to make that 27Gb partition into two  partitions. Nominating one say as a 25GB partition for all his Photos, and say a 2GB partition for his own inputed Data.

My 40GB Drive is partitioned as follows

C:Drive... 10GB...........OS/Progs used.............. ....................5.5GB
D: Data .... 2GB
E: Media .. 10GB
F: BackUp.. 9GB
G: Spare ....9GB


There again He might not want to partition his Hard Drive, just thought it was worth suggesting.  
 
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