help: XP says HD space allocated when actually empty!

[Jordzen]

hello, first post here - wd btw on a nice lookin forum!

MY LAPTOP IS: an HP - Compaq NX9040 - running Windows XP Pro with SP2 (all legal and legit) - 1.4GhZ Celeron P4, 40GB HDD, 512MB RAM. The HDD is IC25N040ATMR04-0, driver version 5.1.2535 (2001).

PROBLEM: My HDD is 40Gb and i only have about 10GB stored on it, however the system reports that I am using 36GB of space. In other words, when i right click on Properties for my C: (the laptop's HD) it says that i am using 36GB out of the available 40Gigs, when actually I am only using about 10GB.

WHAT IVE DONE: I have gone looking for where all this data might be and it appears that it is in my "Documents and Settings" folder (which seems to be 20GB) - but when i look in the subfolders (Administrator, Users, etc) there is nowehere i can find all these Gigs!

So I ran the XP disk check for errors (system restarted and completed the check - at the end a quick message comes up saying that there is empty space that is marked as used but then XP starts up and the problem remains).

ONE MORE THING: i only noticed this issue after installing MS Office 2003. I dont know if this is what caused it or if it was there b4.

Can anyone suggest where i can find a solution to this issue so that I can get my HD space back? The computer wont let me Defragment or anything coz it thinks the disk is almost full. Im not a wizz so please explain in n00b terms for me!

thanks a heap,
J.

 

[Jamxx]

Have you enabled hidden files/folders? That may show you what files are taking up so much space.

 

[borat_sagdiyev]

get jdiskreport.


free program that shows you biggest files and stuff.

 

[Trivium Nate]

How abotu Disk clean up and deleating restore points

1. Right click on my computer hit properities then select the tab that says System restore and select the option that says turn off system restore then wait a few minutes then uncheck that box

2. disk clean up, Got to my computer right click on the hd then hit properities and select Disk clean up then clean up every thing it shows

 

[Jordzen]

hey thanks all of you for the quick replies.

Jamxx thanks - i hadnt even thought of viewing hidden files and folders (im more of a n00b than i even realised!). Anyway, that action revealed a folder called "Application Data/Microsoft/Dr Watson" and in this folder there is a txt file that is 20GB :O called drwtsn32.txt. lol. can i delete it??

(BTW: as i suspected, this file was created when i installed Office 2003, and is in the Microsoft folder. WTF? is this supposed to happen?)

thanks again.

 

[Jamxx]

No, that shouldn't happen. I might uninstall Office, and see if the file goes away. If it does, then try reinstalling Office. If it appears yet again, just try deleting the file.

If it doesn't go away when you uninstall Office, then you can probably delete it. I don't know what would ever be using a 20 GB text file, so you might as well...

 

[borat_sagdiyev]

yeah delete it. you dont need it.

 

[Jordzen]

hey thanks a lot guys - its so cool getting help like this, really appreciate it

J.

btw: i deleted the f***r - yay all my HDD space is back!

 

[Jamxx]

Awesome! I hope everything continues to work well for you.