I have installed Win XP Home on my HDD partition which is 3 GB. The total space used by all the folders [hidden folders included] on my C: drive is 1.9 GB but it still shows only 450 MB free. What happened to the other 600 MB of space on my drive?
2006-12-13 00:29:25 · 8 answers · asked by burf 1 in Computers & Internet ➔ Software
Probably being used by the paging file... Go to Start>Settings>Control Panel and click on the system icon. Select the advanced tab and then click on the setting button under performance. Then click on the advanced tab again and you should now see the virtual memory heading this tells you howmuch space is taken up with the paging file... this should equal what you are missing... Reducing the space of your paging file could slow down your system even further... It's probably time to upgrade your HDD
2006-12-13 01:01:44 · answer #1 · answered by Fremen 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
you should install and run anti-virus anti-trojan-anti-malware tools then scan your system with them I reccomend ad-aware.exe
spybotsearch&destroy.exe, zonalarm firewall.exe windows defender.exe, and hijackthis.exe al are free and will lock down your sytem and make you more resistant to everthing mentioned above.
keeping in mind that it could just be the temp folders and stuff then what you should do is open the my computer icon right click the hdd icon then run the disk cleanup utility, also with the cord unplugged from the wall open internet explorer click tolls scroll down to the options and settings then clear your histroy delete cookies, and delete temp files from websites to get more free space back.
If the paging file is guilty the only option is to buy a larger hdd an 80 gig will cost roughly $90-$100 at walmart and a processor as low as 500Mhz can handle upwards of a 180 gig drive. if running a 333Mhz or lower add a 10 gig to store your other files on.
2006-12-13 08:51:00 · answer #2 · answered by demonicunicorn 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
There are many reasons that could be causing this.
1. If your copy of windows is genuine, then please scan for viruses AND spyware. Adware SE is a nice free scanner.
2. Run Disk Defragmenter from your Start->Acessories->System. You may have Bad Sectors on your disk. Bad sectors will not show up as free space.
You can also Right Click on the disk icon from my computer and select "Tools" tab from the menu that pops up. Use the tool that says "Scan for and recover bad sectors".
If you have bad sectors they may/may not be recoverable. But Windows should work OK as long has it has some disk space.
2006-12-13 08:41:03 · answer #3 · answered by vangel_sg 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
XP usings extra HDD space for your restores. When you end up having to go back to a recent version of XP say if you added a program or it's just not working anymore. This space is set aside for the backing up of data to allow those retores.
2006-12-13 08:38:11 · answer #4 · answered by texas_shammer 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Also Windows install usually leaves a bunch of junk files that aren't used anymore. .Tmp. ,log. etc. As for the Page File you can disable that, re-boot the computer and get rid of anything it has stored, then set it back to the size you want. The normal settings always use the maximum. Same for System Restore if you have it on the partition.
Ron
2006-12-13 08:35:37 · answer #5 · answered by Ron75 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It is probably used by the system for file swapping. The computer needs a certain amount of your free space to run its programs and things in. It works similar to RAM.
2006-12-13 08:31:31 · answer #6 · answered by Strategic Sourcing Expert 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It's probably in use by the file paging.sys, which is a hidden system file that Windows uses as "virtual memory", to swap stuff to the hard drive temporarily when the system memory gets full.
2006-12-13 08:31:34 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
that 600Mb XP should use for RAM saving if you hibernate your comp.
2006-12-13 08:32:34 · answer #8 · answered by zvecko 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋