Hard drive size keeps changing?

Question

My hard drive size keeps going up and down.. It's suppose to be about 50 gigs left but it was down to 785 MB earlier, I thought it was me being careless so I deleted some stuff and it went to 13 gig free, then it dropped back to 6 gig when I checked. Anybody know what I should do? If you're not an expert, I would suggest you kept your opinions to yourself.

Answer 1

I'd run a virus checker just in case.

Answer 2

I'm not an expert, but I read a lot and have managed to keep my hard drive in pretty good shape. You may have a buildup of old junk which can be deleted. Let me give you my checklist which I observe regularly.

1. Set wallpaper and screensavers to blank or none — they run continuously in the background and use memory.
-----right-click on the desktop, select Properties
-----click the screensaver tab, on the left where it says "screensaver," select none.
-----click the desktop tab, for background, select none
2. Review your start menu – remove anything you don’t need on a daily basis — load games, etc. on an as-needed basis.
-----click Start, Settings, Taskbar and Start Menu
-----click the Start Menu tab
-----select a program you do not want to load at Startup, then click remove.
-----Caution -- do not touch anything you are not sure of or you will mess up your computer royally.
3. From Internet Explorer, click Tools, Internet Options: delete cookies, delete files (offline), and clear history. (You can also set days to store history to 0.)
----- These actions will clear your computer’s cache. (For a description of cache, go to http://help.yahoo.com/l/ph/yahoo/mail/access/access-27210.html )
4. Run Disk Cleanup, Scandisk, Defrag at least every two weeks (the more frequently they are run, the less time they take).
-----These can be found in Start, Programs, Accessories, System Tools.
5. Periodically, click Start, Programs, Run — then type ipconfig renew
(that’s ipconfig space renew).
6. Optional: Speed vs Goodies — in the Control Panel, System, Advanced, Performance, Settings — you can have visual effects or let Windows select the best options. I am using “Best Performance.” Your choice.
These things should increase speed and free up memory as much as possible.

Answer 3

When you run your cpu it has available memory and available hard drive. If you are looking at available memory then that just means you have that certain amount of space to run more programs at that certain time. Different programs require different amounts of memory to run without freezing your system up. It is possible you could have a self-loading java applet hidden in your program files somewhere that will run itself on a certain timeframe and perform "tasks" in the background un-noticed. It is most likely just your system running larger files or programs. If you have anti-spyware or anti-virus scanning on your system just let it scan ALL files in your computer one night. If it finds any thing it will attempt to identify and quarantine it, if it can't it will ask you if you want to delete it. Deleting it is most likely your best choice if the system can't i.d. it.

Answer 4

I would go to the hard drive manufacturer's site and download their program to check the drive.
If it is changing free space that quickly, it is either about to fail, you have major file system errors or something worse.
If the manufacturer's utility finds no problems with the disk, then run check disk. Go to my computer, right click on the disk and choose properties. Go to the tools tab and click on check for errors.