I have an HP Pavilion a820n that I formatted and reinstalled Windows XP because it had a virus and now it keeps saying there is low disk space (about 415 MB) and when you try to run videos it keeps stopping and starting. It has a 6G hard drive and about 1G of RAM. Before it got the virus it ran videos fine and never said it had low disk space. The only program it has besides the bare necessities is CA Internet Security Suite which it did not have before the virus. Anyone have a clue what the problem is? Thanks!
wmc1956 0 Light Poster
tigerbright 13 Junior Poster
Hi, 6GB hdd ? i suggest upgrade to a larger hdd, you can accumulate 2GB of internet related records , then there is the page file which may expand to another couple of GBs, then the Windows XP nominal 20% free space - not much left for the Windows sp3 , temp files , applcations etc, however issue seems caould be sound driver issue causing wasted resource usage - what sound device are you using ? if an expansion card i suggest uninstalling then reinstalling using the default windows driver, then upgrade from the computer support site if oem, or the card vendor site if retail/non-original
jingda commented: Welcome back to daniweb, tigerbright. Although i do not know you:) +9
jingda 135 Industrious Poster Featured Poster
What did you reformat in the first place. Not all the time reformating will help you clean up the virus properly. You have to manual remove it. And your 6G hard drive do you mean 6 GB?
Download Windirstat and see what is using your hard disk space. Post back when you are done.
flagstar 111 Practically a Master Poster
Did you do manual reformat using retail XP or with recovery disk?
gerbil 216 Industrious Poster
Aw, heck... see the thread about pagefile.sys just down the page.
Full and slow? Well, it would be.
tigerbright 13 Junior Poster
Just one aspect of running Windows XP - it requires a nominal 20% of total hard disk space as user reserved free space to assist efficient processing - Windows will work if encroached upon but performance will suffer
flagstar 111 Practically a Master Poster
Just one aspect of running Windows XP - it requires a nominal 20% of total hard disk space as user reserved free space to assist efficient processing - Windows will work if encroached upon but performance will suffer
I don't think xp will take that much free space unless you've install on a very limited space. Normally Windows XP alone take about 2GB of space without any third-party program installed and 1.5x space value of RAM for pagefile. If RAM is 1GB, pagefile value would be 1.5GB. So at least 3.5GB would be used for Windows only, leaving the rest free space for personal use and customization.
If 6GB was too small for XP, use nLite XP that was design for small HDD but less performance like netbook etc.
wmc1956 0 Light Poster
The strange thing is that after I did the format and reinstall windows and the virus protector there was over a gb left. Then all of a sudden a few days later it was down to about 450mb.
jingda 135 Industrious Poster Featured Poster
So have you found out what happen to the space. Maybe some big files are clogging it up?
flagstar 111 Practically a Master Poster
If you can, check through WinDirStat like Jingda recommended in previous post to find out which file makes that huge trash on your free space but you don't need to post here.
Check folders except WINDOWS and pagefile.sys to find out where it could clog...
or use CCleaner to clean up for you. If you've been using Chrome or going to heavy based websites or window updates, it might contribute to clog free space...
jingda commented: Yo, buddy +9
jingda 135 Industrious Poster Featured Poster
You might also want to do a scan first. Try Malwarebytes or your antivirus program. Malware could possibly take up your disk space but not that much but no harm checking.
flagstar commented: hi... i don't think it's a malware but worth checking anyway +5
tigerbright 13 Junior Poster
Not wanting to harp on the subject but using a 6GB hdd running late release applications with net access is a loosing battle if optimal performance relative to mainboard device support is desired
A late release and compatible model hdd should wake up processing noticeably as well as removing capacity concerns
tigerbright 13 Junior Poster
Hi , your drive is a dog to start off with and as storage is used up , it gets slower and slower due to various factors - as i suggested upgrade to later model larger disk drive that is supported.
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