need help with computer hdd full

[DDD]

I says my hard drive is full but it cant be. I just did a full format and nuked everything. Only things installed are XP (not SP2), Quickbooks and Virus protection. Yet it says my hdd is at full capacity. Its a relatively small drive 18gb, but I sure it is not full. Computer runs like crap now too. Is there a way to test the integrity of a drive? Disk Cleanup wont work either. It just hangs. Think the hdd is toast?

[Ectheo]

If it's 18gb, it might possibly be full.

I have my hd partitioned so that the OS is on one part (20gb) and the remainder is on the other part (66gb), and the OS partition is frequently full.

[danulf]

download Tuneup Utilities and run the disk checks on that, but it doesn't sounds like it's broken, just full... Tuneup Utilities have a disk space explorer too, which shows you how many % of the disk is full with what

[Maxtr0sity]

1. Run checkdisk first on the drive (right click on drive->properties->tools->error checking: [check now]).
2. Run Partition Magic on it, make sure it's partitioned correctly (NTFS and size).
3. If that's not available, boot Ubuntu and snoop around. No way can XP fill 20GB by itself, I just checked my /Windows folder, 2GB after about 18 months of use.

[Jeff Wheeler]

Boot into Ubuntu 7.04. It has several disk-checking utilities (not sure if the new one in 7.04 that gives that cool graph will work with the NTFS drive, though).

[johnlouis]

I just checked my /Windows folder, 2GB after about 18 months of use.
I just checked my /Windows folder and it is 2.43GB after 2 months of use.. is that normal?

[kirupa]

A large chunk of the space can be attributed to System Restore save states. On my XP machines, about 4GB (or 10% of total HD space) will be used for System Restore states.

[DDD]

k how do I check that? But I just formatted about 2 weeks ago. Would it fill that fast? I am looking into the ubuntu and other things.

[Maxtr0sity]

Right click My Computer ->Properties -> System Restore tab

[Vexir]

Why would you keep an 18gb drive nowadays when 100gb drives go for $20?

[Maxtr0sity]

Why waste $20 when you only need 20GB?

[DDD]

1. Run checkdisk first on the drive (right click on drive->properties->tools->error checking: [check now]).
2. Run Partition Magic on it, make sure it's partitioned correctly (NTFS and size).
3. If that's not available, boot Ubuntu and snoop around. No way can XP fill 20GB by itself, I just checked my /Windows folder, 2GB after about 18 months of use.

Got an error during phase 2 of the disk check saying windows was unable to complete disk check. Looking into partition magic.

[evildrummer]

Boot into Ubuntu 7.04. It has several disk-checking utilities (not sure if the new one in 7.04 that gives that cool graph will work with the NTFS drive, though).

Its pretty easy to make Ubuntu read NTFS so im sure if it can read it, it will work.

[Maxtr0sity]

Got an error during phase 2 of the disk check saying windows was unable to complete disk check. Looking into partition magic.
If checkdisk failed, you might have some bigger issues. Look into Partition Magic for now (anyone know a freeware?). If it still shows NTFS and ~20GB, then you've got some bytes to fix.

[ben_is_sparky]

Maybe have a look at GPartEd? (not sure it's what you want, though)

[Jeff Wheeler]

GPartEd is a smaller distro that essentially just contains the disk utilities that come with GNOME, also part of Ubuntu.