Computer HDD Low Disk Space Issue

whs said:

Very good. Windude was right. It seems to be your virtual system. Just delete that VM folder and start a new virtual installation.

What is still puzzling is that this did not show in WinDirStat. My virtual partitions show there.

Yep, I tried uninstalling the virtual drive and it BSOD my system. I'll try deleting the VM folder.

Glad to hear you found the culprit

bberkey1 said:

Glad to hear you found the culprit

Thanks! I'm not out of the woods just yet...everytime I try to uninstall my VM I get a BSOD. Any thoughts on how to get around that?

windude99 said:

I think it is normal for XP Mode to show that your virtual hard drive is big even if it isn't really that size on actual hard drive. The virtual hard disk file automatically expands as data is added to it.

Good to know...Thanks!

Supercar Ace said:

bberkey1 said:

Glad to hear you found the culprit

Thanks! I'm not out of the woods just yet...everytime I try to uninstall my VM I get a BSOD. Any thoughts on how to get around that?

windude99 said:

I think it is normal for XP Mode to show that your virtual hard drive is big even if it isn't really that size on actual hard drive. The virtual hard disk file automatically expands as data is added to it.

Good to know...Thanks!

You may want to post what the BSOD states. I'm not to versed with BSOD problems, but plenty of people here are. Have you experienced the BSOD prior to uninstalling it or is it only when you try to uninstall?

Boot into Safe mode and adjust your virtual memory settings from within there to 0 min 0 max, reboot, defragment your hard drive, then reboot again and try 2048 min 2048 max for VM, and reboot again.

Other space leaks are temp files and browser cache, you have a line on freeware to deal with those or just search for them, they are readily available as is the info on how to adjust the VM settings.

I have a techie folder on my browser bookmarks for all the things I know I will forget, and back up the bookmarks regularly to minimize loss, since all HDs fail, eventually.

Faladu said:

Boot into Safe mode and adjust your virtual memory settings from within there to 0 min 0 max, reboot, defragment your hard drive, then reboot again and try 2048 min 2048 max for VM, and reboot again.

Other space leaks are temp files and browser cache, you have a line on freeware to deal with those or just search for them, they are readily available as is the info on how to adjust the VM settings.

I have a techie folder on my browser bookmarks for all the things I know I will forget, and back up the bookmarks regularly to minimize loss, since all HDs fail, eventually.

Seems my computer doesn't want to corporate with me. I tried booting it in Safe Mode and it froze up (it's never taken 15 minutes to load Safe Mode before). I have a minidump file from my last BSOD crash. What do you guys think?

Thanks for the tips b the way!

Faladu said:

What exactly happened on the safe mode load attempt?

Like, did it go through the loading motions as usual and stop on a particular file (note that)?

Or it finishes and hangs at the Windows logo?

I'd give it extra time and see if an error does eventually show up, if none did.

....looked at the .dmp and iaStor.sys is the HDD controller driver for your system and here is a MS page with info on that BSOD code....

Bug Check 0x8E: KERNEL_MODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED (Windows Debuggers)

With cause and resolution info, I hope that helps!

windude99 said:

Try running chkdsk: Disk Check
Note: Be sure "Automatically fix file system errors" is checked and check "Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors"
If it finds errors, run it again with the same options checked. Also, what antivirus are you using?

I tried booting in Safe Mode but it stopped loading on the this file:

Loaded:\windows\system32\drivers\classpnp.sys

After that it stayed there for 45 minutes.

Any thoughts?