'Low Disk Space', but there isn't, though there is? (Help needed)

[Jim]

My bastard Laptop keeps telling me that I have Low Disk space (each time I check, it is around the 20MB of free space mark), but I know this to be complete bollocks and, if it is not, then fucked if I know what is filling up my computer at a ridiculous rate. I have deleted countless things to 'free up' space, but nothing works.

I uninstalled WoW (not that I ever play it, so it wasn't much of a loss) from my laptop earlier, and now, a few hours later, it still tells me that I have low disk space.

Now, do ya ken? WoW for fucks sake. That's roughly 4GB freed up and nothing...Nout at all.

I'm not computer literate enough to look into this problem any further, so...

Help?

I have run Spy-Bot and AVG and, while they found thousands of virus such things, they haven't fixed this 'problem.'

(Oh, also, I get a ridiculous ammount of pop-ups [internet connected or not] that the afformentioned don't get rid of either)

So, some help of any kind would be appreciated verily...

[Prometheus]

format

[Jim]

Aye?

[Prometheus]

ok there is either OS problem that is going to keep cropiong its slef up and a reinstall may repair the problem, or some files maybe to currpt to be repaird by an os reinstall.... so the safeest bet is a format... where u say your not real good computer wise... a computer shop maybe the best solution for you in that case.

[loretian]

Yeah.. I'd agree.. that's fucked up.

Format, reinstall....  there's something wrong with your system.

I have run Spy-Bot and AVG and, while they found thousands of virus such things, they haven't fixed this 'problem.'

    Reformat now! 

[Jim]

Yes, but...I would be able to format my laptop, I just don't really want to. I'm a long way from being anything good with computers, but I'm not totally illiterate. I get the feeling, when going through my hard drive, that there are specific corrupt files that need to be gotten rid of but I just...Can't find them.

I went to delete something just now, and when looking at the properties it's size and number of folders was rising as I looked at it.
Bear in mind that I hadn't touched this folder until I looked at it a moment ago. It rose easily half a gigabyte or more while I was watching. I've since deleted the whole thing, and there seems to be about four[ish] GB's of free space, for the moment I just...Don't know how long that is going to last.

[Where is Hassan Nasrallah ?]

maybe you have 2 partitions (C: and D: for example) and you think you're good cause you look at D, byt C where the system is, is actually low on space ....

but yeah if you 1000 viruses, ?just format all, and don't use internet explorer

[Jim]

What? No!

I deleted from C:!

Read!

Fool!

Ahem.

Bollocks. I really don't want to format.

[loretian]

I went to delete something just now, and when looking at the properties it's size and number of folders was rising as I looked at it.
Bear in mind that I hadn't touched this folder until I looked at it a moment ago. It rose easily half a gigabyte or more while I was watching. I've since deleted the whole thing, and there seems to be about four[ish] GB's of free space, for the moment I just...Don't know how long that is going to last.

When you view the properties of a folder, it takes time for it to count up all the subfolders and the amount of disk space it uses. ?I imagine this is what you saw, and that makes sense, especially if it was using 4 gigs. ?I really doubt the size was actually increasing as you were looking at it, it was just the count of that space that was increasing.

I know it's a pain in the ass, but I really think your best bet is to reformat. ?If you don't want to do that, I'd say be willing to shell out a little money and have a company like Geek Squad take a look at it. ? When you have thousands of viruses and corrupt files, it's extremely difficult to fix without wrecking your system, and there's a high likelihood the problems will return, which is why a clean format is recomended.

[Jim]

Oh, that's alright then.

Thankyou, for your help.

I'm going to try and weather the storm, give it about 2 weeks...

If it's still gone fucked up land, then I'll get some uber geek to take a look at it.

I thank ya.

[Mr. Dick Purple]

You should find the trouble on google, there's gotta be some register problem, you can do it by clicking start then go to run and write regedit, but you have to know the exact routes of your main problem and that's difficult part. Better format 

[Gunner80]

1. Do a disc clean up and remove all temporary files and webclient/Publisher files.
2. Update Windows regularly to fight against hacker exploits.
3. Look in "ad and remove programs" to see what's taking up the all the space on C:
4. Remove all items from your Prefetch folder.
5. Defragment your hard drive at least once a day. this works great.
6. Only use Firefox 1.0.7 or Opera 8.5 - IE is embedded in the OS and is more vulnerable to attack.
7. Install spywareblaster to prevent future attacks.
8. And last but not least, you should always back-up - reformat - and reinstall your OS at least once a year.

P.S If you're on high speed, be sure and have a firewall(Don't use XP's built in crap) installed. Zonealarm is damned near hacker proof. The free version is great.

[Genesis]

Could be that the OS is reporting the amount of free space left incorrectly. Can happen after a crash. Try running chkdsk on your disk.
(P.S: All this assuming that u're sure there's more space available and the free space shown is not correct).

[Jim]

Well, as I said, I'm not great with computers (in as far as in depth knowledge goes), but I did free up 4 Gigabytes of space and it did nothing. So I'm pretty sure that there should be some free space there.

Or at least more than 20 or so megabytes...

[Skeba]

Another thing is that if you've set the Virtual Memory really high, it'll gather itself all the free space available as it is freed up.

[Sin Cut]

Well, as I said, I'm not great with computers (in as far as in depth knowledge goes), but I did free up 4 Gigabytes of space and it did nothing. So I'm pretty sure that there should be some free space there.

Or at least more than 20 or so megabytes...

did you empty the trashcan also?

[Jim]

Now that, that I do indeed do.

[Mr. Dick Purple]

Hey Jim i've found this on google
Looks like your same error.

Click here

[Rockin' Rose]

Can't offer any help but at the moment I'm having a lot of hard drive problems and I'm scared to death to lose all my GN'R material

I got to get either lot's of DVD's or a external hard drive (at the moment I'm not making lot's of money)

[chineseblues]

Another thing is that if you've set the Virtual Memory really high, it'll gather itself all the free space available as it is freed up.

Im pretty sure I have this problem with my PC, how do I change the settings on it?

Also I have this problem where when Im trying to rip a dvd to say avi, after a little while my computer completely shuts down on its own. I have no idea what's going on with it and I've had it checked out by several people who knows alot about PC's and they are completely baffled as well. Any help is greatly appreciated.