Strange Problem-- Plss Help

I own a Win98 PC with 6GB of HDD , 2 partitions of 3 each (C and D) . About a week ago my PC is showing a Strange problem the size of my C drive fluctuates a lot. I have about 210MB free C drive but when I connect to net the size dramatically drops to 40 KB !!!!!!! and Disk Clean Up message is displayed.This problem doen't always when I didn't connected to the net :( , I have checked with Norton with latest updates but nothing found. Pls help me what's is going wrong, is disk defragmentation solve this problem or my C drive is going to CRASH .Please Help

yikes.. to 40 KB ? you would be in danger of crashing with only that much space left.
what I'd do is put the swap file on another partition.

right click on "my computer" select properties.. go to the performance tab, then virtual memory, then select "let me specify..." choose another partiton. click ok.. etc.. reboot.

then start clearing up a bit more space on C: get rid of temp internet files.. do a find and put in *.tmp.. delete those.. same for *.chk (that won't clear up too much but) then maybe uninstall some of your apps from C: and reinstall on another partition. clean up as much as you can.. defrag the drive.. and if you can get back up to 800 to 1 gig free space you can put your swap back to C: but if your other partions have more space.. or if it's a physical hard drive that happens to be faster (like a 7200 rpm drive) then just leave your swap there.

edit : oops just reread your post.. only one drive.. and then you say.. it ONLY happens when you connect to the net ? hmmmmm... i gotta think about that one for a bit.

i suggest you to formating the hardrive, intstall the antivirus, ad-aware, and updates your windows periodically.
May be this site can help you www.bootdisk.com

Hi bat21,

sumdumguy is quite right about your swap file, the scandisk error files (.chk) and the temporary files (.tmp)

My suggestion is to look at what you are saving in "desktop" and "my documents" as these will default to your C:\ drive

Also you might tell us what "office/word processing you are using, and where that is" Also, HOW MUCH OF THE "D" PARTITION IS USED


You are on WIN98..............so here is a real old DOS fart's method: :D

Click on <start> then <run> (from the pop-up menu)

Type in

winfile

Then hit enter

You will get an old DOS screen that shows you your system.

Highlight the C:\ drive then from the "options" at the top of the screen select <view>

Now check the "sort by size" box


Note the names of the big files ( over 10mb) and post a reply back here so we can advise you further.

DO NOT DELETE ANYTHING until we have advised you

Good Luck

Here's a thought, are you running any fpeer to peer program (like Kazaa). On my server it's straight Windows XP and Kazaa on a 4GB hard drive. I found there was like 2MB free after awhile, and could not figure it out. I tried clearing tmp files, even went and cleaned out all the temp directories of all the users on the computer (which is a another thought, plus the standard windows directory temp folder). Found out it was the Internet Temporary files that had build up to the point where it was the rest of the free space. So it's something to think about checking on just incase.

Just a helpful thought...
~AciD

It might be worth runningthe disk cleanup routine, to see what it suggests cleaning up. Is there any of the categories where the figures seem exceptional? As already mentioned, I would look at the temporary internet files, as the problem would seem to be related to internet access.

nihil is giving good advise too - do this while connected to the net, and let us know what you find.

????????????????????????????????????beats me ??????????????????????????????????????
may be u use a file downloader like getright whch is downloading a big ( in ur case a server perhaps!! ;) ) file so ven ever ur online it resumes the downloading and ven ur offline it showes the free space.

although this does not exactly explain but i do suggest u use a fire wall and moniter ur out going and in coming connections just to make sure some downloading proggg.. is not doing its buisness, and also check in dos mode ur hard disk capacity


C:\>dir
Volume in drive C has no label.
Volume Serial Number is 9443-183D

Directory of C:\

09/14/2003 03:53 PM <DIR> WINDOWS
09/14/2003 03:58 PM <DIR> Documents and Settings
09/14/2003 04:09 PM <DIR> Program Files
09/14/2003 04:11 PM 0 CONFIG.SYS
09/14/2003 04:11 PM 0 AUTOEXEC.BAT
09/14/2003 04:26 PM <DIR> Ghost
01/07/2003 08:07 PM <DIR> HITESH
01/07/2003 08:31 PM <DIR> HGITESH
09/14/2003 04:26 PM <DIR> SUNIL
01/14/2003 11:23 AM 11 KAT.BAK
01/14/2003 11:23 AM 15 KAT
01/14/2003 11:55 AM 11 DAS
01/16/2003 01:50 PM <DIR> B VIJAY
5 File(s) 37 bytes
8 Dir(s) 17,543,675,904 bytes free

C:\>

this may help

________________________________________
PROUD TO BE A HINDU!!!!!!!!!!!

Another thought:

Microsoft's "findfast" and any system recovery software you might have will take up a lot of space after a while.

If you have moved your swapfile (.swp) to your "D" drive, remember that you have to MANUALLY delete the old one from your "C" drive.

Cheers

I had this problem when i was downloading linux (KNOPPIX), with DAP. but when the download finished, thing were back to normal.

:)

Yeah downloading can be a tricky thing with a C:\ drive that is almosted filled, when using Windows. Becuase if you have ever noticed when you download a big file to anywhere, once the download is complete Windows will sit and copy the file from the temp directory to where ever you told Windows to save the file to. This is why I always put ALL of my temp directories to D:\Temp.

Just a thought...
~AciD

Clean your HD and all the previously said stuff. I think that it's most likely a virus/trojan/wierd cookie(?) that is downloading something as soon as it has access to the internet. When you connect, kill everything except your one connection and try <Start> - <Run> - <Command> - <netstat> for a list of your current connections and ports. Solution is AV software and a complete wipe of the harddrive. Then install everything while NOT connected to the outside. Check other computers on your network as well pehaps? Last unprobable possability is spywear of some type.

I would suggest formatting and reloading entirely. If a virus scanner is not obtaining and info on malicious programming, then it could be spyware, peer to peer, or other means of hard drive activity dealing with an internet connection. I honestly format and reload my computer quite frequently. It's just a way to be sure that no "junk" like that is on my computer. I keep firewalls running, anti-virus up-to-date, etc. If you can afford to format and reload I would do just that, and as was stated earlier use spyware programs, like Ad-Aware.