Rutabaga
Sep 2nd, 2009, 07:02:25 PM
I've had computers for 10 years now and know my way around them, but when it comes to hardware issues, I'm a doofus. So I'm turning to all the computer gurus here with an issue that may mean absolutely nothing, but I don't want to take any chances that there's something I'm doing that I need to change. It's a long story, but I'll try to make it short.
About a month ago, I decided to defrag my hard drive for the first time in months. I was shocked to find that I had only 29GB left on the drive. (It's a computer that was 4-5 years old with a 160GB hard drive.) I defragged it and decided to baby the computer for while since I was planning on upgrading next year.
Well, I kept watching the hard drive, and I kept losing gigs. One gig here, 2 gigs there. Without my downloading or adding anything. I dumped a lot of extraneous stuff, and I still kept losing gigs. Over the course of a couple of weeks, I lost 10-11GB.
Since there were other issues with the computer, I decided to upgrade earlier than planned. I got a new computer and have had it hooked up since Saturday. I had made the decision to really keep this new computer streamlined and have only the programs I feel I need to have...no more customization with skins and icons and screensavers, etc. Just the necessary stuff. So I've added not all that much beyond the programs the computer came loaded with. The most substantial program I've added is iTunes.
And now the same damn thing is happening to this new hard drive.
Last night was the biggest loss of space...I was away from the computer for only about an hour and the only thing going on was that a Windows screensaver was running. In that period of time, the hard drive went from 596GB free to 590GB. So 6GB went *poof* without my doing anything.
The thing I'm wondering about is, do the game apps at Facebook eat hard drive space? I play 4 of them heavily, on a daily basis. Nothing is stored on the hard drive that I'm aware of, because I'm never asked to save anything. And logic tells me that if this were an issue, there would be a great hue and cry over it.
I'm just at a total loss over this and quite dismayed to see this happening on a brand new computer that I haven't even paid one payment on. I'm afraid that the worst case scenario if this occurs is that in a matter of weeks I'll have a brand new computer with a 750GB hard drive that's jammed full and unusable.
Are major fluctuations in available hard drive space normal? And if so, why are the flucuations always a loss of space, not gaining space? Is there something I'm doing wrong that I need to change? Any ideas?
About a month ago, I decided to defrag my hard drive for the first time in months. I was shocked to find that I had only 29GB left on the drive. (It's a computer that was 4-5 years old with a 160GB hard drive.) I defragged it and decided to baby the computer for while since I was planning on upgrading next year.
Well, I kept watching the hard drive, and I kept losing gigs. One gig here, 2 gigs there. Without my downloading or adding anything. I dumped a lot of extraneous stuff, and I still kept losing gigs. Over the course of a couple of weeks, I lost 10-11GB.
Since there were other issues with the computer, I decided to upgrade earlier than planned. I got a new computer and have had it hooked up since Saturday. I had made the decision to really keep this new computer streamlined and have only the programs I feel I need to have...no more customization with skins and icons and screensavers, etc. Just the necessary stuff. So I've added not all that much beyond the programs the computer came loaded with. The most substantial program I've added is iTunes.
And now the same damn thing is happening to this new hard drive.
Last night was the biggest loss of space...I was away from the computer for only about an hour and the only thing going on was that a Windows screensaver was running. In that period of time, the hard drive went from 596GB free to 590GB. So 6GB went *poof* without my doing anything.
The thing I'm wondering about is, do the game apps at Facebook eat hard drive space? I play 4 of them heavily, on a daily basis. Nothing is stored on the hard drive that I'm aware of, because I'm never asked to save anything. And logic tells me that if this were an issue, there would be a great hue and cry over it.
I'm just at a total loss over this and quite dismayed to see this happening on a brand new computer that I haven't even paid one payment on. I'm afraid that the worst case scenario if this occurs is that in a matter of weeks I'll have a brand new computer with a 750GB hard drive that's jammed full and unusable.
Are major fluctuations in available hard drive space normal? And if so, why are the flucuations always a loss of space, not gaining space? Is there something I'm doing wrong that I need to change? Any ideas?