what will happen if you run out of hard drive space? will you have to get a completely new hard drive?

Question

I keep getting a message that says my system is low on virtual memory, and someone told me that if I run out of memory completely my hard drive will crash 100%. But what will happen if my hard drive crashes? Like will the computer just turn off, and then I have to use the installation disk to get it on again? Or will the hard drive just not work at all anymore, even if I try to reinstall windows? Also, somebody else said they recieved a message that said windows ran out of RAM, so apparently they recieved this message and there was no hard drive crash for them. Would I also recieve such a message, or would I recieve any kind of warning right before i was about to run out of RAM? Or would my hard drive just crash with no warning whatsoever?

Answer 1

If you have a cd writer with your computer, copy all files from My Documents folder, and from elsewhere , the files you downloaded from internet, music, video, images, text files etc.
After copying them on cd/s delete them from the hard disk. It will free space.

Use a temp files cleaer like ccleaner regularly.

run the following two menus of ccleaner
cleaner > Analyze > Run Cleaner
issues > Scan For Issues > Fix Selected Issues

Read Howto of CCleaner on the link below
http://bestofrest.blogspot.com/2006/11/ccleaner.html

Answer 2

Windows uses hard drive space for virtual memory. If your hard drive is low on space then Windows has less Virtual memory to work with, and it may issue that message.
If your hard drive gets full then Windows may crash, but it should start again when you reboot the machine. However, you would be facing the same problem immediately.
Try the DISK CLEANUP function. START > My Computer >
[Rightclick on C: drive] > Properties > Disk Cleanup - get rid of the Temporary Internet Files by having a checkmark in that box. Be sure to click OK to make it happen.
You may install a second hard drive in many computers or buy a larger one and transfer your files and Windows to it.
You may just remove some programs or music or photos from your current hard drive to a CD or other kind of storage.
You should inquire about a way to make a full backup of your computer - the cost of equipment is usually worth it considering the data that would have to be replaced.
Setting a fixed size for the Windows Virtual Memory file on disk is possible and might help prevent a really bad crash of Windows. 750MB is often enough. A technician might be needed to talk you through how that is done.
The basic problem of hard disk space will return unless you stay ahead of it. This means you have to keep your files organized and learn enough about computers and Windows OS to administrate your operation properly.

Answer 3

you actually have three different issues.
one is ram memory, one is virtual memory, and one is hard drive memory.
if you run out of ram it means you're trying to run too many things at once or a couple very large memory intensive programs.
running out of virtual memory is on of the set-ups for how much space is saved to run windows. you can go into the control panel in administrative accounts and reduce the virtual memory. however your program will run slower.
the other issue is not having enough physical space on your hard drive. by the way, the low hard drive space is where windows is getting its virtual memory.
first thing is go to my computer and right click the drive and left click properties. there is a button for clean disk.
it will tell you about lots of memory you are using but don't need. the next thing would be to do a search of every file over say 5MB. you may be surprised of some old video or music and often multiple copies. just delete what you don't want.
now for the real answer. get a second bigger hard drive.
you can add 350GB for less than $100. Last week fry's had 750GB on sale for about $180.

YOU DO NOT WANT TO LET YOUR CURRENT DRIVE GET LOW ON MEMORY!!!!! What you heard about the drive crashing is 100% true. you can have so little space left that the program to delete the files may be too big to run!!!! The drive will just chatter and can physically be damaged.

Answer 4

hi...i dont think the problem is related to ur hard drive. its more because you dont have enuf RAM installed. get some more RAM installed or try and uninstall some heavy programs from ur sydtem, that might help to get ur virtual memory back on track. As for hard drive crashes, in most cases it is resolved if u format ur hard drive and reinstall windows.

Answer 5

How many gigs is your hdd and how much ram is installed? How many programs are installed on your hdd, and how many programs are in your "start up" folder?

Virtual memory is an addressing scheme implemented in hardware and software that allows non-contiguous memory to be addressed as if it is contiguous. The technique used by all current implementations provides two major capabilities to the system:

1. Memory can be addressed that does not currently reside in main memory and the hardware and operating system will load the required memory from auxiliary storage automatically, without any knowledge of the program addressing the memory, thus allowing a program to reference more memory than actually exists in the computer.
2. In multi tasking systems, total memory isolation, otherwise referred to as a discrete address space, can be provided to every task except the lowest level operating system. This greatly increases reliability by isolating program problems within a specific task and allowing unrelated tasks to continue to process.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_memory

With pictures; http://computer.howstuffworks.com/virtual-memory.htm

Ran out of virtual memory; http://www.google.com/search?q=ran%20out%20of%20virtual%20memory&sourceid=groowe&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8

Start your research here; http://www.google.com/search?q=virtual%20memory&sourceid=groowe&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8

Make it a great day!

Answer 6

first you shouldnt be worried v m dosent have much to do with hard drive space its space used to run multiple programs at once to increase go to control pannels>sytem>advanced>Click the first settings button>Hit the advanced tab in the new window>On the bottom hit the change button> then set it to what you think whould work fine mine is set a min 600 mb and maxed at 2000. it all depends on memory.

Answer 7

this might help you-- http://www.microsoft.com/atwork/getstarted/pcproblems.mspx