HD Full

[bertemery 0]

My HD is showing full when I know it is only 50% full. This is the second time it has happend, the first time an engineer fixed it but that costs money.I was going to uninstall/reinstall XP but that is beyond my capabilities. Could I just remove the old HD and fit a new new one and inslall XP on that, it seems straight forward, any problems?

[Myke 0]

It sounds like you are having a problem similar to THIS POST, depending on if your partition is NTFS.

 

In that post, ignore the 2nd and 3rd responses, as we misunderstood his problem. I'm not sure if he was able to fully resolve the issue, but check out the link that I threw in on that post (the link above should take you right to that section); it details something similar to what you are talking about.

[bertemery 0]

Hi! I have done disc clean up, defrag, deleted files, cookies, emptied my recycle bin and I delete all of my email as soon as I have read them, and still my 40gb HD shows only 2.87 free space left. I am not a Techie so I don't understand a lot of the jargon, that's why I thought it would be easier to fit a new HD and reinstal XP, what do you think?

[packman 0]

I'd be inclined to stay with the current HD and to try to discover exactly why you're achieving only 50% usage, if I were you. If you change the HD (especially if you use a new HD that's of a different manufacturer or a new capacity), the Windows Activation step (at the end of the XP installation process) might flag an objection, as it might think you're trying to run that same edition of XP on a second machine. Not the end of the world in itself, but you could in theory get caught up with Microsoft over that. Quite apart from the large amount of work involved in first backing up your personal and other files, it'd be quite a long job to install XP and all your programs on a new HD. If you're sure that the existing HD doesn't have a hardware fault with it or is otherwise on its way out, it may be better to retain it, rather than replace it, and in the WinXP Setup choose to format the HD before XP itself is installed. Bear in mind that a 40GB HD won't provide exactly 40GB of space by the time it's formatted; it'll be several GB less. The same with all HDs, of all capacities.

[bertemery 0]

Hi!, Thanks for taking the time to answer. What you say is quite true, I contacted my shop, and they said the same as you, so seeing as it more than I am capable of, I am letting the shops engineer do it for me. 40Gbs is more than ample for me, you have saved me the expense of buying a new HD, thanks again, Bertieboy.

[austin8218 0]

Hi,

I would suggest you to stick with your old hard drive.

Just format all the disk drives and you should be thought.

if you need i will give u full help for installing windows xp, if you have the installation disk.

Before even formatting try chk dsk, may help you.

 

[bertemery 0]

Help! I have tried to uninstall Flight Simulator to gain some more space on my HD but try as I may, the add/remove program will not do it.

[Myke 0]

Did you take a look at the link I posted earlier?

 

It sounds like you might have a corrupted partition. Unfortunately, the only way to resolve this (if it is indeed a corrupted partition) is to delete the partition, recreate the partition, and reinstall the OS. It's not fun, but it's the only way to fix a corrupted partition.

 

Consult your shop and see if they confirm this.

[bertemery 0]

Hi! Yes the shop did confirm what you said. I don't think I am capable of partitioning and reinstalling, but I would appreciate your guidance, I can only try, if I mess up, the shop will do as a back up. Building is one thing trouble shooting is another. Thanks.

[Myke 0]

Well, the problem here is that you are going to lose everything, so you'll want to do a backup now. Make sure you perform a full backup and not a differential.

 

What we are going to do is reformat your HDD using the installation disk that came with your OS. Make sure that your system is set to boot from CD. You can do this in CMOS by hitting F2 as soon as your keyboard lights flash when you boot your machine up (sometimes it's F8, or F12; it really depends on the manufacturer; Dells always use F2). In CMOS, you go to boot sequence and make sure that boot from cd is before HDD. Save settings and exit CMOS.

 

Once you are prompted, you'll have to hit any key to boot from the cd (this is immediately after the POST beeps and before Windows begins to load; if you see Windows loading up, then you missed it and will have to reboot). Here, you will follow the on-screen instructions to delete your partition, then re-create it. After that is done, format the drive using NTFS and reinstall the OS on that partition. It's a real hastle, but it's the only way to fix a corrupted partition.

 

After the OS has been installed, you'll have to reinstall all of your applications and all of the Windows updates. This will take a few hours to finish, so make sure you have plenty of time.

 

When you are done with everything, you should be able to use the backup to restore the files that you wanted.

 

Again, check with your shop. They might be able to use the backup to quickly setup everything without the need to go through every little setting, depending on how your backups operate.

 

Good luck and let us know how it goes. PLEASE BACKUP FIRST!!!

[bertemery 0]

Thanks for your advice. If you don't hear any more you'll know it's all gone wrong. Will be in touch, hopefully