Windows NT - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

Smackre · 12-21-2009, 12:00 PM

Problem: Windows NT using up all my 2gb hard drive. So I added a second partition and put all the virtual memory on the second partition. Figured that would fix everything.

The pc turns on with 24mb free space on drive C:

As you run the computer about a hour later is 22mb and so on and so on. My question is what else could be using up the little bit of disk space I have left? And can I move that to the second partition. B4 I moved the virtual memory I would have 10mb of space when the pc turned on and about 10 mins later I would have 0 MB because the virtual memory would use all that space up.

boink · 12-21-2009, 01:15 PM

when I was on NT I found massive files in my outlook, huge Zonealarm logs.

LordEden · 12-21-2009, 01:22 PM

Is getting a new HD out of the question? You are most likely going to spend more time trying to figure out where MBs of data are going than just buying a 40gb HD for $40 and doing a quick disk image.

Really, I would recommend that. Logs, Temp files, almost anything could be using up those MBs of space. I wouldn't really recommend running windows anything on an almost full HD. Windows needs breathing room.

MexicanOnABike · 12-21-2009, 04:23 PM

2gb HD? windows NT? maybe backup some of your files to a few floppy discs and plug in a serial port from one computer to the next to backup the bigger files. Or go on your 14.4k modem and email the files to your server?!

seriously though: why not upgrade like others have said? a bigger HD is nothing now. I'm sure you could find a 10-20-40 or larger even for a few dollars.

Martian · 12-21-2009, 04:42 PM

Browser cache and temp files are the most likely culprits.

Are we talking NT Workstation 4.0 here, or another OS built on the NT kernel? It's been a long time since I worked with 4.0, but I seem to recall a typical Workstation installation being in the 200-300 MB range, depending on which bells and whistles you include.

There's something you're not telling us.

Also, a 1 TB drive can be had for under $100.

Ironically, to address MOAB, the price floor on older hard drives tends to be around $20 if you go retail. A 30 GB platter drive, for example, has been out of production for so long that they're actually somewhat hard to find and the price tag reflects this. Further to that, if it's seen any kind of use it may well be on it's last legs, meaning that the lifespan on that type of drive will be short. Motors wear out.

Best avenue for something like that is to talk to a geek friend and see if he's got an old unused one lying around. I typically give stuff like that away for free, or else trade them for cables or adapters whatever other small items I might need.

Luckily, that shouldn't be necessary. NT 4.0 unsurprisingly supports NTFS, which allows for drives in the petabyte range. Anything on the market will work with NT 4.0 just peachy. On the other hand, if the hardware matches the operating system, expect to give it a couple days to format anything over 100 GB or so. UDMA 33 formatting a full terabyte promises to be a lengthy process.

Pedant Note: It's floppy disk, with a k. Short for diskette. Discs are the round things used for optical media.

Smackre · 12-21-2009, 07:47 PM

I really didn't want to change the hard drive or do any formatting. The software on the computer costs 10,000$ to replace and I don't have the cd's to install it. If I paid the company 10,000$ they would show up with a brand new pc with windows XP and upgraded software. I understand it might be easier to replace the hard drive. The drive that is in there now is a 40gb drive. Partitioned to two 2gb drives. But since its FAT and not NTFS i think the max I can go is 2gb per partition.

I was hoping to just get some ideas as to why its slowly using up the hard drive space. Its windows NT 4.0 Workstation.

MexicanOnABike · 12-22-2009, 09:34 AM

can you install an imaging program or run one from boot? Ghost the drive and then reinstall the image on a bigger drive. No need to change any softwares.

---------- Post added at 01:34 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:30 PM ----------

not to go off topic but:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Martian

Pedant Note: It's floppy disk, with a k. Short for diskette. Discs are the round things used for optical media.

Back in the days of diskettes, I didn't speak english. so it would have been a Disquette(french spelling).

the word Disk is not something that looks right to me so I say Disc to everything that sounds like it. eh.

Cynthetiq · 12-22-2009, 10:10 AM

Double check your logs. Maybe there is an error that is happening frequently and that is filling up the system logs.

I still support a NT3.51 server which I keep telling the guy to retire. He's got some accounting/inventory control software that he's not interested in moving to another machine until he absolutely has to.

So his 2GB partition eventually filled up with a bunch of errors. I'd check that first. I cleared them out, but 2 weeks later it was full up again.

Smackre · 12-22-2009, 12:41 PM

It there a way to make the logs auto erase after a couple days?

Cynthetiq · 12-22-2009, 12:43 PM

not that I have ever been able to find.

Smackre · 12-22-2009, 12:46 PM

I will check them out and see what I can find out. I talk to the people who built the PC and such and all they say is upgrade. When I bought it 10 years ago they told me hard drive space would never be a issue.

boink · 12-22-2009, 01:25 PM

lol, when I got my NT workstation I thought 20 gigs was alot of space too, ten years ago ! I was also running expensive NT only software.
towards the 'end' of it's life it the drives were getting maxxed out even after I uninstalled lots of un needed software and cleaned all temp files I could find. every day I'd hunt and delete files. I never did figure it out. I still have the comp and it'll still boot up. the expensive software is gone though. I know somewhere there must be a log file full of ten years of useless info.

Martian · 12-22-2009, 01:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Smackre

It there a way to make the logs auto erase after a couple days?

You can use the Windows Task Scheduler I believe. You can do it via Disk Cleanup, probably, or you'd need to figure out where Windows keeps the DOS commands; I don't believe that Task Scheduler allows you to schedule console commands, although I could be wrong. You can schedule it to do a cleanup every X hours or days, which may help.

If the software is key, you can use fdisk to partition the remaining space on the drive in NTFS and leave the FATx partition intact. Trouble is, if the software is installed on the OS in the FATx partition, it might be tricky to move it. You'd probably be looking at manually replicating registry keys and editing them to point to the appropriate location, and editing registry keys is usually a bit more involved than most people want to go.

The simplest option would be to image the drive and then move the contents to a new HDD.

EDIT -- I just double-checked, and Task Scheduler will accept console commands. The trick is that you have to create the task manually by going through File>New Task . If you try to do it through the Wizard, you won't get the option.

LordEden · 12-22-2009, 01:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Smackre

When I bought it 10 years ago they told me hard drive space would never be a issue.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.... *gasp*.... HAHAHAHA. *wipes tear from eye* I'm sorry reading that almost made me piss my pants. I'm sorry I have nothing to add to this conversation that I haven't already added. I just couldn't let this slip by.

SecretMethod70 · 12-22-2009, 02:15 PM

"No one will need more than 637 kb of memory for a personal computer." - Bill Gates, early 1970s.

You will always need more space.

Smackre · 12-22-2009, 08:01 PM

Not sure whats so funny about 25,000$ spent on software and a computer to find out that I was lied to about issues. They couldnt even come up with a fix for the virtual memory problem. They told me there was nothing I could do. So I figured out the making a new partition and putting the virtual memory on it.

LoganSnake · 12-22-2009, 08:21 PM

Pardon me, but what kind of software costs $10,000+?

Cynthetiq · 12-22-2009, 08:29 PM

lots of enterprise software back in the NT days were in that ball park, heck we had a 100k+ helpdesk app that ran on NT4

SecretMethod70 · 12-22-2009, 08:36 PM

Smackre: you weren't lied to, they were just being short-sighted. Just like Bill Gates was. The fact is, technology changes. It's something we need to accept. It's also the reason I never buy anything bleeding edge.

Smackre · 12-22-2009, 09:28 PM

We spent 15,000$ on a CAD/CAM program last year. Its easy to rack up $$ on software.

LordEden · 12-23-2009, 05:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Smackre

Not sure whats so funny about 25,000$ spent on software and a computer to find out that I was lied to about issues.

You should never believe sales people when it comes to tech like this. It's like buying snakeoil from a charlatan. You will always need more of something, memory, HD space, processing power, tapes, backups, whatever.

If NT supports NTFS, couldn't he just buy a new HD, partition it to NTFS, then make a image with Norton Ghost or some other image software that is out on the net and drop it into the new HD? Few hours of downtime and then he doesn't have to worry about HD space for 10 years? I would think a space machine, a new HD, and a copy of a image program would fix all his problems. Make a copy of the hd, load it onto the new HD and play around with ti. Once you figure it out, then do a complete switch over.

One of my biggest clients is running proprietary software/hardware for win2k. For awhile I was getting him Intel boards that still support 2k til those became so hard to find I was having them shipped from overseas. When that started happening he had to switch over to winXP machines. I'm still finding him crazy shit like a socket775 motherboard that has ISA slot and runs a duel-core proc.

Cynthetiq · 12-23-2009, 05:41 AM

Eden I thought I was the only one!!! I had to find small <1Gb IDE drives a few months back.

I have a client who has Win95 still running and he insists on keeping it since it is cheaper to buy an old PC from ebay or craigslist for $50. This is a multimillion dollar corporation!!!! It makes sense, and does the job for the least amount of money. He won't change or upgrade his accounting software either since his was also about $15k.

I've been trying to get him to upgrade to solve some of the networking issues, but ultimately it's the cheapest solution for him to use this old tech.

12-21-2009, 12:00 PM	#1 (permalink)
Smackre Addict	Windows NT Problem: Windows NT using up all my 2gb hard drive. So I added a second partition and put all the virtual memory on the second partition. Figured that would fix everything. The pc turns on with 24mb free space on drive C: As you run the computer about a hour later is 22mb and so on and so on. My question is what else could be using up the little bit of disk space I have left? And can I move that to the second partition. B4 I moved the virtual memory I would have 10mb of space when the pc turned on and about 10 mins later I would have 0 MB because the virtual memory would use all that space up. __________________ Intel® Pentium® M Processor 730 (1.60 GHz/2MB Cache/533MHz FSB) 17 inch UltraSharp™ Wide Screen XGA+ Display 1GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz 2 Dimm 256MB NVIDA® GeForce™ Go 6800

12-21-2009, 01:15 PM	#2 (permalink)
boink Addict Location: Seattle	when I was on NT I found massive files in my outlook, huge Zonealarm logs. __________________ when you believe in things that you don't understand, then you suffer. Superstition ain't the way.

12-21-2009, 04:23 PM	#4 (permalink)
MexicanOnABike Location: up north	2gb HD? windows NT? maybe backup some of your files to a few floppy discs and plug in a serial port from one computer to the next to backup the bigger files. Or go on your 14.4k modem and email the files to your server?! seriously though: why not upgrade like others have said? a bigger HD is nothing now. I'm sure you could find a 10-20-40 or larger even for a few dollars. __________________ - Movie Reviews - Ratings-

12-21-2009, 04:42 PM	#5 (permalink)
Martian Young Crumudgeon Location: Canada	Browser cache and temp files are the most likely culprits. Are we talking NT Workstation 4.0 here, or another OS built on the NT kernel? It's been a long time since I worked with 4.0, but I seem to recall a typical Workstation installation being in the 200-300 MB range, depending on which bells and whistles you include. There's something you're not telling us. Also, a 1 TB drive can be had for under $100. Ironically, to address MOAB, the price floor on older hard drives tends to be around $20 if you go retail. A 30 GB platter drive, for example, has been out of production for so long that they're actually somewhat hard to find and the price tag reflects this. Further to that, if it's seen any kind of use it may well be on it's last legs, meaning that the lifespan on that type of drive will be short. Motors wear out. Best avenue for something like that is to talk to a geek friend and see if he's got an old unused one lying around. I typically give stuff like that away for free, or else trade them for cables or adapters whatever other small items I might need. Luckily, that shouldn't be necessary. NT 4.0 unsurprisingly supports NTFS, which allows for drives in the petabyte range. Anything on the market will work with NT 4.0 just peachy. On the other hand, if the hardware matches the operating system, expect to give it a couple days to format anything over 100 GB or so. UDMA 33 formatting a full terabyte promises to be a lengthy process. Pedant Note: It's floppy disk, with a k. Short for diskette. Discs are the round things used for optical media. __________________ I wake up in the morning more tired than before I slept I get through cryin' and I'm sadder than before I wept I get through thinkin' now, and the thoughts have left my head I get through speakin' and I can't remember, not a word that I said - Ben Harper, Show Me A Little Shame Last edited by Martian; 12-21-2009 at 04:50 PM..

12-21-2009, 07:47 PM	#6 (permalink)
Smackre Addict	I really didn't want to change the hard drive or do any formatting. The software on the computer costs 10,000$ to replace and I don't have the cd's to install it. If I paid the company 10,000$ they would show up with a brand new pc with windows XP and upgraded software. I understand it might be easier to replace the hard drive. The drive that is in there now is a 40gb drive. Partitioned to two 2gb drives. But since its FAT and not NTFS i think the max I can go is 2gb per partition. I was hoping to just get some ideas as to why its slowly using up the hard drive space. Its windows NT 4.0 Workstation. __________________ Intel® Pentium® M Processor 730 (1.60 GHz/2MB Cache/533MHz FSB) 17 inch UltraSharp™ Wide Screen XGA+ Display 1GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz 2 Dimm 256MB NVIDA® GeForce™ Go 6800

12-22-2009, 10:10 AM	#8 (permalink)
Cynthetiq Tilted Cat Head Administrator Location: Manhattan, NY	Double check your logs. Maybe there is an error that is happening frequently and that is filling up the system logs. I still support a NT3.51 server which I keep telling the guy to retire. He's got some accounting/inventory control software that he's not interested in moving to another machine until he absolutely has to. So his 2GB partition eventually filled up with a bunch of errors. I'd check that first. I cleared them out, but 2 weeks later it was full up again. __________________ I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not. What's the best nation in the world? DO-NATION!

12-22-2009, 12:41 PM	#9 (permalink)
Smackre Addict	It there a way to make the logs auto erase after a couple days? __________________ Intel® Pentium® M Processor 730 (1.60 GHz/2MB Cache/533MHz FSB) 17 inch UltraSharp™ Wide Screen XGA+ Display 1GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz 2 Dimm 256MB NVIDA® GeForce™ Go 6800

12-22-2009, 12:43 PM	#10 (permalink)
Cynthetiq Tilted Cat Head Administrator Location: Manhattan, NY	not that I have ever been able to find. __________________ I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not. What's the best nation in the world? DO-NATION!

12-22-2009, 12:46 PM	#11 (permalink)
Smackre Addict	I will check them out and see what I can find out. I talk to the people who built the PC and such and all they say is upgrade. When I bought it 10 years ago they told me hard drive space would never be a issue. __________________ Intel® Pentium® M Processor 730 (1.60 GHz/2MB Cache/533MHz FSB) 17 inch UltraSharp™ Wide Screen XGA+ Display 1GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz 2 Dimm 256MB NVIDA® GeForce™ Go 6800

12-22-2009, 01:25 PM	#12 (permalink)
boink Addict Location: Seattle	lol, when I got my NT workstation I thought 20 gigs was alot of space too, ten years ago ! I was also running expensive NT only software. towards the 'end' of it's life it the drives were getting maxxed out even after I uninstalled lots of un needed software and cleaned all temp files I could find. every day I'd hunt and delete files. I never did figure it out. I still have the comp and it'll still boot up. the expensive software is gone though. I know somewhere there must be a log file full of ten years of useless info. __________________ when you believe in things that you don't understand, then you suffer. Superstition ain't the way.

12-22-2009, 02:15 PM	#15 (permalink)
SecretMethod70 Human Administrator Location: Chicago	"No one will need more than 637 kb of memory for a personal computer." - Bill Gates, early 1970s. You will always need more space. __________________ Le temps détruit tout "Musicians are the carriers and communicators of spirit in the most immediate sense." - Kurt Elling

12-22-2009, 08:01 PM	#16 (permalink)
Smackre Addict	Not sure whats so funny about 25,000$ spent on software and a computer to find out that I was lied to about issues. They couldnt even come up with a fix for the virtual memory problem. They told me there was nothing I could do. So I figured out the making a new partition and putting the virtual memory on it. __________________ Intel® Pentium® M Processor 730 (1.60 GHz/2MB Cache/533MHz FSB) 17 inch UltraSharp™ Wide Screen XGA+ Display 1GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz 2 Dimm 256MB NVIDA® GeForce™ Go 6800 Last edited by Smackre; 12-22-2009 at 08:05 PM..

12-22-2009, 08:21 PM	#17 (permalink)
LoganSnake We work alone Location: Cake Town	Pardon me, but what kind of software costs $10,000+? __________________ Maturity is knowing you were an idiot in the past. Wisdom is knowing that you'll be an idiot in the future. Common sense is knowing that you should try not to be an idiot now. - J. Jacques

12-22-2009, 08:29 PM	#18 (permalink)
Cynthetiq Tilted Cat Head Administrator Location: Manhattan, NY	lots of enterprise software back in the NT days were in that ball park, heck we had a 100k+ helpdesk app that ran on NT4 __________________ I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not. What's the best nation in the world? DO-NATION!

12-22-2009, 08:36 PM	#19 (permalink)
SecretMethod70 Human Administrator Location: Chicago	Smackre: you weren't lied to, they were just being short-sighted. Just like Bill Gates was. The fact is, technology changes. It's something we need to accept. It's also the reason I never buy anything bleeding edge. __________________ Le temps détruit tout "Musicians are the carriers and communicators of spirit in the most immediate sense." - Kurt Elling

12-22-2009, 09:28 PM	#20 (permalink)
Smackre Addict	We spent 15,000$ on a CAD/CAM program last year. Its easy to rack up $$ on software. __________________ Intel® Pentium® M Processor 730 (1.60 GHz/2MB Cache/533MHz FSB) 17 inch UltraSharp™ Wide Screen XGA+ Display 1GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz 2 Dimm 256MB NVIDA® GeForce™ Go 6800

12-23-2009, 05:41 AM	#22 (permalink)
Cynthetiq Tilted Cat Head Administrator Location: Manhattan, NY	Eden I thought I was the only one!!! I had to find small <1Gb IDE drives a few months back. I have a client who has Win95 still running and he insists on keeping it since it is cheaper to buy an old PC from ebay or craigslist for $50. This is a multimillion dollar corporation!!!! It makes sense, and does the job for the least amount of money. He won't change or upgrade his accounting software either since his was also about $15k. I've been trying to get him to upgrade to solve some of the networking issues, but ultimately it's the cheapest solution for him to use this old tech. __________________ I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not. What's the best nation in the world? DO-NATION!