"Low disk space" warning.

I have Windows7 SP1.

Every so often the Hidden Icons on the taskbar flash a "Low Disk
Space" warning even though the HDDs are nowhere near full.

A message box pops up saying that Windows couldn't install updates
because of this "low disk space."

Each of my HDDs are less than half full.

It prompts me to run "Disk Cleanup". After this the warning goes
away, only to return again the next day.

Why does this happen? Peter

On Wed, 18 Jan 2012 08:33:22 +1100, Peter Jason wrote:

I have Windows7 SP1.

Every so often the Hidden Icons on the taskbar flash a "Low Disk
Space" warning even though the HDDs are nowhere near full.

A message box pops up saying that Windows couldn't install updates
because of this "low disk space."

Each of my HDDs are less than half full.

It prompts me to run "Disk Cleanup". After this the warning goes
away, only to return again the next day.

Why does this happen? Peter

Check your C: drive root directory.
You should have no files outside of folders other than used by windows.
If that is not the case, then it could be various programs running in the
background.
Open task manager and check the process tab.
Shut down any where do you not have the main program running.
Things that have "scheduler" in the description.

You can run "Disk cleanup" seperately and see if that helps.

Do you shut the machine down at night? I leave mine running 24/7 and it
hasn't lost a heartbeat yet.

On 1/17/2012, richard posted:
Check your C: drive root directory.
You should have no files outside of folders other than used by windows.

That reminds me of a limitation of the FAT12 & FAT16 file systems. It
hasn't been true for a long time.

Probably a more likely place to look is in the status of the Recycle
Bin, System Volume Information (used by System Restore), and so on.

Windows Update likes to do a system restore function before updating;
if there's a problem there, I'd expect the message that PJ got.

OTOH, since I've never had this problem and never had to deal with it,
we should wait for a more knowledgeable poster.

--
Gene E. Bloch (Stumbling Bloch)

On Wed, 18 Jan 2012 08:33:22 +1100, Peter Jason wrote:

I have Windows7 SP1.

Every so often the Hidden Icons on the taskbar flash a "Low Disk
Space" warning even though the HDDs are nowhere near full.

A message box pops up saying that Windows couldn't install updates
because of this "low disk space."

Each of my HDDs are less than half full.

It prompts me to run "Disk Cleanup". After this the warning goes
away, only to return again the next day.

Why does this happen?

Do you have a tiny Recovery partition, by chance? Have you looked in
Disk Management (Start, Run, diskmgmt.msc) to see what it says about
your various hard drive volumes and how much free space they have?

--

Char Jackson

Peter Jason wrote:
I have Windows7 SP1.

Every so often the Hidden Icons on the taskbar flash a "Low Disk
Space" warning even though the HDDs are nowhere near full.

A message box pops up saying that Windows couldn't install updates
because of this "low disk space."

Each of my HDDs are less than half full.

It prompts me to run "Disk Cleanup". After this the warning goes
away, only to return again the next day.

Why does this happen? Peter


This would be a more fun question, if we knew *what* partition was
filling up. Does the message identify it ?

I've read of cases, where the 100MB SYSTEM RESERVED partition
gets things put in it by the OS. That partition is not supposed
to have a drive letter, on Windows 7. In a case like that,
the System Volume Information folder (access denied), can be
populated by System Restore or by other means.

You can go to Start, and run the "diskmgmt.msc" program.
You might need to run that as Administrator. That should
display all the partitions, and give you as much info
as Windows can manage. (For example, it can't tell you
how full your Linux partition is.) The next time you get
"low disk", check Disk Management, do the Disk Cleanup thing and
check again, and see how much of a difference that is
making.

Paul

On Tue, 17 Jan 2012 14:01:16 -0800, Gene E. Bloch wrote:

On 1/17/2012, richard posted:
Check your C: drive root directory.
You should have no files outside of folders other than used by windows.

That reminds me of a limitation of the FAT12 & FAT16 file systems. It
hasn't been true for a long time.

Probably a more likely place to look is in the status of the Recycle
Bin, System Volume Information (used by System Restore), and so on.

Windows Update likes to do a system restore function before updating;
if there's a problem there, I'd expect the message that PJ got.

OTOH, since I've never had this problem and never had to deal with it,
we should wait for a more knowledgeable poster.

I wasn't sure so I just went with the old stand by response.

On 1/17/2012, richard posted:
On Tue, 17 Jan 2012 14:01:16 -0800, Gene E. Bloch wrote:

On 1/17/2012, richard posted:
Check your C: drive root directory.
You should have no files outside of folders other than used by windows.

That reminds me of a limitation of the FAT12 & FAT16 file systems. It
hasn't been true for a long time.

Probably a more likely place to look is in the status of the Recycle
Bin, System Volume Information (used by System Restore), and so on.

Windows Update likes to do a system restore function before updating;
if there's a problem there, I'd expect the message that PJ got.

OTOH, since I've never had this problem and never had to deal with it,
we should wait for a more knowledgeable poster.

I wasn't sure so I just went with the old stand by response.

But we still need to get a real expert in here :-)

Also, to be fair to you, Windows 7 doesn't like files in the root
directory, so you have to do extra work to do it. Folders are OK.

--
Gene E. Bloch (Stumbling Bloch)