Hard drive not displaying correct usage?

[tango71]

Hi Folks,

I have a problem with my hard drive. I have a 266 mhz HP Kayak with 64MB of RAM and a 4GB HD. Recently, it doesn't display the correct properties for used and free space, when I click on my computer » C Drive » right click properties. The problem occured when I was using photoshop 7 and scanning some pictures. The properties used to read 2.9GB of free space now it only reads 462MB of free space. Is there anything that I could do to free up space in my hard drive? I have deleted all large image files that I was working on PS7, uninstalled some programs not being used and deleted files from the temp folders but nothing seem to work. Will this permantely damage my hard drive? Does it have to be replaced or can I do something to fix it?

Thanks in advance for all the replies! Have a good day!

Tango71

[glc]

Try running a thorough Scandisk.

[_-=GODSPEED=-_]

for me, it looks like some connection problems. IDE or power cables. check them 1st. if its ok, then run surface scan, and try defraging your hd. pls reply when problem is solved.

[Cricket]

4GB hard drive? It must be fairly old by now and could be on it's way out. I'd run the surface scan to see if bad clusters are developing. You might be looking a purchasing a new hard drive soon.

Cricket

[homer15]

sounds like a possibly failing harddrive to me as well, unless you scanned 2 gigs worth of pictures.

[tango71]

Thanks for all the replies. I wanted to see what exactly was taking all the space. I decided to download Treesize Professional. It found where all the space went to. It was all in the Temp Folders. I found 2 .tmp files that were taking up all the space and deleted it. It corrected the problem. Thanks for all the help!

[bounty]

that program is very useful...can i delete everything in my temp folder?

bounty

[tango71]

I'm not sure about that. I know that it can be dangerous to delete files from a Windows Folder. I deleted these files because I know that it didn't exist before. Maybe someone with more knowledge can help you.

[glc]

You can safely delete everything in c:\windows\temp, c:\winnt\temp, and c:\documents and settings\username\local settings\temp (this folder is hidden) after a fresh reboot.

[bounty]

what is the purpose of the windows temporary folder?

bounty

[glc]

In a nutshell? Trash collection.

[tango71]

lol good description!