Hard Drive Problems

OS: Win98Se Processor: Pentium III RAM: 320 MB Hard Drive Capacity: 9.54 GB Okay, here's the deal. Last night, I go to watch a video on Google. Halfway through getting it buffered, I get an 'out of space' error on my computer. I clear it and check my space. Sure enough, 33 MB of space left. I run AVG and Ad-Aware. Both clear out the computer, didn't find anything. Reboot, my space is back, 5.56 GB worth. I thought the problem cleared, but I go to find out as I'm checking (me and my paranoid self), my free space is dropping yet again. As of now, my space sits at 5.51 and I've been using the 'net for about 30 minutes. I'm really hoping for some help, I don't have the money for a new computer. Is there any way I might can fix this? Thanks in advance. ~JBB~

How longs it been since you have run maintenance..? Its been awhile since I have been on a 98 machine but you have a maintenance wizard you can run that will do all of that for you. I believe if you go into the control panel, there on the left will be listed several options.. see if the "maintenance wizard" is one of them. if you cant find it.. ill install 98 on a vm and find it for you… just post back and gimme a few to get it going. Anyway, I doubt that the video is over 5gb you think? The way you describe that it sounds as if its holding all this info in a BUS, like what happens when you burn on the fly (from one cd to another). But go ahead and run your "maintenance wizard" having it clean up your harddrive first.. when its done, right click on start.. then choose explore.. the first window that pop's up should show you the file tree.. you should be able to see Windows temp file folders.. right click on that(those) folder(s) and choose explore again..now click on "file" (or edit..) at the top of that window… choose select all.. then click on file and choose delete. Post back afterwards and let us know how that works.

The video file from Google was a steaming video, no downloading involved. Maintenance Wizard has been run. It deletes unnecessary files for the first step. The second step runs ScanDisk. There's a problem with ScanDisk of some sort, as it never gets past the 'Checking File Folders' stage and starts at the beginning again. O_O Thought I'd post this before I got into the defragging part.

Sorry about the length of time it has taken me to get back with you. I had promised to help a friend move and im just returning home (at 3:30 a.m.. go figure) Anyhow… when you first boot up your computer, does it want to run scandisk everytime..? If so you need to let it. No matter the time frame it takes.

Hi JoeBobBriggs,

Whilst Crow gets a bit of well earned shut-eye you could try this:

Run ScanDisk in safe mode (the problem of scandisk repeated restarting is usually due to a programme writing data to the hard drive and the chances of this happening in safe mode are greatly reduced.
Don't forget that it can help to reboot before and immediately after scanDisk has run.

If you really feel that you must run it in ordinary mode then make sure that all unecessary programmes are shut down, disconnect from the Internet, disable your scanner software, stop task scheduler, disable your anti spyware, anti virus and firewall, and make sure there is nothing in the system tray that is running that could be stopped, (Click on Ctrl Alt Del to get into Task Manager and stop anything other than explorer and systray) When you have done this it might be a good time to defrag (as you youself suggested)

You could also download ccleaner from here:

http://www.ccleaner.com/download/

This is a free programme (although donations are always welcome) which comes with a tutorial and works fine on Win 98se, not only will it clean out all your temp files, internet cache, Java cache and all the usual junk that very quickly accumulates (even only after 30 minutes of surfing) but also has a registry cleaner, will give details of your startup programmes, and a host of other things.

When you are done don't forget to enable all your protections, firewall, anti syware, anti virus and all the other bits you disabled.
By the time you have done all this I reckon Crow should be back, refreshed and full of his usual excellent suggestions
Regards
paws

All right guys, the problem's been remedied since the last suggestion. I want to thank you, Crow and you, Paws for your help. MUCHLY appreciated, guys. ~JBB~