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Author Topic: Windows XP SP3 and disappearing disk space  (Read 16600 times)

toulouse

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Windows XP SP3 and disappearing disk space
« on: August 14, 2008, 07:40:14 AM »

Hi everyone,

Installed Service Pack 3 yesterday, and have been amazed at how fast disk space is being consumed. Does anyone have any ideas why that might be ? I seem to remember a similar situation when I tried it a few weeks ago.

TTFN


toulouse

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oldfogy

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Re: Windows XP SP3 and disappearing disk space
« Reply #1 on: August 14, 2008, 11:26:19 AM »

Funny you should ask that.

I put it on my lappie a couple of weeks ago, (well I got bored and needed something to do)
Anyway, apart from no obvious or noticeable benefits, I did notice the HDD was slowly being consumed.
So I have since removed it.

I do monitor my HDD space, because it makes a difference with the Ghost Image backups, and the time it takes to create it/them (Ok, so it's only between 2 - 8 minutes) but time is precious.

Although on this normal (Tower) PC it's not had any effect one way or another.
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toulouse

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Re: Windows XP SP3 and disappearing disk space
« Reply #2 on: August 14, 2008, 11:34:39 AM »

Thanks for that, OF.

The disappearing disk space was brought to my attention yesterday afternoon when I started to get warning message boxes telling me I was critically low on disk space. This was around 3-4 hours after I had installed SP3. I found that after rebooting the available space on Drive C: was around 11GB, but over a period of a couple of hours this morning it has again dwindled down to around 2GB. Nothing particular running on the PC, apart from RouterStats, Outlook Express and Safari. I have now gone back to pre SP3 configuration, i.e. SP2, and everything seems normal again - Go figure !!!!


I suspect there are still some serious 'issues' with Service Pack 3.

TTFN

toulouse

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oldfogy

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Re: Windows XP SP3 and disappearing disk space
« Reply #3 on: August 14, 2008, 12:04:44 PM »


I suspect there are still some serious 'issues' with Service Pack 3.


But not effecting all PC's in the same way.
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kitz

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Re: Windows XP SP3 and disappearing disk space
« Reply #4 on: August 14, 2008, 01:56:17 PM »

Sorry toulouse I dont know the answer but when you mentioned this - just out of curiousity I decided to have a look at how much space was being taken up on mine...  and unless Im being really stupid something doesnt add up.

C Drive Capacity 146GB. Used 32.9GB Free space 113GB

And these are the contents at the root aside from a drivers file of 405KB

 5.15 GB - Windows
10.7  GB - Program files
 4.22 GB - Docs and Settings

So thats just a tad over 20GB... Where the heck is the other 12GB?

Viewing Hidden files

MSO Cache (M$ Office) - 529MB
Recycler - 24.5 MB
System Volume Information 0
boot.ini + MS Dos etc <300KB
Page File 2.99GB
hiberfil.sys 2.99GB


Had to look up the following info
Hiberfil.sys and pagefile.sys are each set at 3GB by Windows since I have 3GB of RAM


Still doesn't add up and theres still 5GB+ missing somewhere.
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oldfogy

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Re: Windows XP SP3 and disappearing disk space
« Reply #5 on: August 14, 2008, 02:11:35 PM »

System restore files are usually hidden aren't they?
But your's do not show in the hidden files.
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toulouse

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Re: Windows XP SP3 and disappearing disk space
« Reply #6 on: August 14, 2008, 02:23:27 PM »

@kitz

All that is with SP3 installed is it ?

I've unloaded it again this morning, and space is variable at around 10GB now.

I was up early this morning at around 6:00, started the machine up and space was at around 11GB, but within a couple of hours it was down to 2GB. At that point I offloaded SP3, and now things seem OK again.

METHINKS something is very wrong with SP3. it may be something to do with earlier reports about problems with AMD processors on some manufacturers machines. Mine is a Packard Bell Imedia 1280. I have had a quick 'google' to see if anything is on the wire, but haven't seen anything about disappearing disk space. The strange thing is, if I reboot, it goes back to what it was at the beginning of the day, so I assume something ??? is writing some kind of temporary file which gets deleted at system startup - go figure !!!!!


TTFN

toulouse

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Floydoid

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Re: Windows XP SP3 and disappearing disk space
« Reply #7 on: August 14, 2008, 03:45:06 PM »

My first thought was if you have a dynamic paging file, but if you did that wouldn't account for those discrepancies.
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dave.m

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Re: Windows XP SP3 and disappearing disk space
« Reply #8 on: August 14, 2008, 05:26:52 PM »

Where did you get the SP3 installer from?
Is it on a CD or did you download from M$ Updates?
If from Updates then you will only have the bits that are relevant to your computer, but if from a disk or from a different download site, then you will jhave ALL the SP3 software.
Try from Tthe M$ Download site and get just what your system needs and see what size the file is.
dave
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toulouse

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Re: Windows XP SP3 and disappearing disk space
« Reply #9 on: August 14, 2008, 05:36:22 PM »

thanks dave.m,

It was downloaded automatically yesterday morning from the M$ site. One big download, a partial install and then a further download from the M$site. Numerous system restarts along the way. What a pain !!!

I think, until the boys at Redmond or wherever get their act together, I'll keep away from the mother !!! It definitely ain't right.

Since I last posted earlier today, my free space on Drive C: has gone up from ~10GB to ~11GB - and I haven't had to delete any files manually - once again go figure !! I am of course now back to SP2.

TTFN

toulouse

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kitz

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Re: Windows XP SP3 and disappearing disk space
« Reply #10 on: August 14, 2008, 05:56:30 PM »

Yes I have XP3 on - downloaded via the updater.
I'm not particularly fussed about mine, since I have plenty of spare space on my system,  just thought it was strange.  (C Drive is for Windows and prog files only - everything else is elsewhere)
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Floydoid

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Re: Windows XP SP3 and disappearing disk space
« Reply #11 on: August 14, 2008, 07:38:08 PM »

(C Drive is for Windows and prog files only - everything else is elsewhere)

Same here.... my 40GB C: drive is barely 20% full.

BTW, I have the indexing service switched off which makes for smoother running. ;)

[edit]
Just one of the many tips that I picked up from Koroush Ghazi's excellent tweaking companion

http://www.tweakguides.com/TGTC.html
« Last Edit: August 14, 2008, 07:41:21 PM by Floydoid »
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nvd

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Re: Windows XP SP3 and disappearing disk space
« Reply #12 on: August 19, 2008, 11:37:04 AM »

I'm having the same problem on my Dell D420 laptop: after installing SP3 empty disk space was 18.2MB, and is eaten up fastly with no apparent reason. Space drops to 0 after a few hours. Winoptimizer doesn't find anything. Rebooting gets back the space, but it gets eaten away again very fast.

Anyone with a solution ?
If it persists, I'll have to remove SP3.

Niek
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toulouse

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Re: Windows XP SP3 and disappearing disk space
« Reply #13 on: August 20, 2008, 07:35:12 AM »

@nvd

I was experiencing exactly the same problem, so I decided to revert to SP2. The problem has now gone away.

TTFN

toulouse



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Yorkie

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Re: Windows XP SP3 and disappearing disk space
« Reply #14 on: August 20, 2008, 10:06:19 AM »

I'd just like to say I'm not having problem (lot of help I am).
Because I only have a 30g hd (look after coming from an 8g one it seemed big at the time - ok) I do tend to keep an eye on my space and I lost about half as gig after installing SP3, but have not continued to do so. Although SP3 appears to be the culprit possibly some other prog is being affected that I don't have, I don't download music and films for a start, so whatever you need for that I don't have (I'm a luddite).
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