If so, I have an important question. I think that my computer may have some kind of a virus on it. My memory free went from 1.8 gigs to just 877 megs overnight, despite the fact that I had just very recently un-installed several programs that I never use anymore, and deleted many files. I got rid of a few more things today, and my amount of free memory went up to 996 megs, but has since dropped to 842 megs. Also, my scan disk and defragment programs have been acting up. They don't run properly, they continually restart themselves and get nothing accomplished. Please, I NEED SOME HELP! I'm going to take it to a tech if problems continue, but I'd like an opinion here.

Thanks. And sorry that this post has nothing to do with piano.

Wish I could help but this isn't really my area.

First, you say memory but I assume you mean disk space as opposed to RAM.

I assume you have rebooted recently? And has your antivirus program had anything to say when starting back up?

I'd first try to find what the files are that are using up the space.
Go into My Computer (or explorer), click C:, then near the top (below the url bar) click "size" to arrange the files by size.

Look for the biggest files and most recent date. You may need to poke into some directories to find them. A likely culprit would be in the "temp" directory.
I once had a program writting huge files to my temp directory. Once I found what it was, I changed the settings so it wouldn't do it anymore.

As to the defrag and scan disk...
The usual cause of them resetting is either from another application writting to the disk or not enough free ram.
If you bring up the task manager (ctrl/alt/del) and close all programs except Explorer and Sysdoc32 you should be able to run them.

Let me know what you find.

Frank B.
Piano World

I agree with "Piano World," I'd clear out my temp directories with cleandisk or some other way. Viruses usually don't simply take hard drive space away and then leave the system integrity intact. The virus makers are usually more malicious than that. Or, somebody is secretly downloading mp3s onto your computer... hehe just kidding.

Hi, JGoo:

Also Windows2000, NT and other variants will "hide" temp files from the internet on your hard drive. (Actually not just from the internet, but I'm assuming that's the bulk of your work.)

Do a file search for *.tmp, ~*.*, etc., and see if you can find some directories where your temp files might be written and kept around. Also in Windows2K there's a subdirectory called "Temporary Internet Files" that's buried way down in the tree structure. See if you have a folder that's similarly named. If so, you can delete EVERYTHING in that folder (and you should do so periodically).

Finally, you can also recapture some hard disk space (I'm assuming you're using M'soft IE) by: 1) Select "internet options" from the Tools drop-down menu; 2) ensure you are on the 'general' tab; 3) delete files from your temporary internet files and history stores. You can also lower the length of time these files are kept on your hard drive from here as well.

These are just to help speed up your explorer, and aren't needed for any other reason. I don't save anything at all and I've never had it affect my performance in any way I could notice.

Good luck!

Nina

Jgoo,

With regard to Defrag/Scandisk restarting, it's because you still have some other program running (screensavers are usually guilty) you have to disable them entirely. As well as anything that is running in the lower right quick access toolbar panel. Right click all these to turn off/stop/disable everything like scheduler, virus shields etc. There's a switch somewhere in the defrag dialog boxes which enables you to put the mouse cursor to a selected corner of your screen while running defrag. This will prevent the screensaver from starting for as long as you keep the mouse cursor in that preselected spot. Also note that defrag will normally restart several times, especially if your hard drive's a mess, but will if acting normally pick up where it left off, instead of going back to square one. Hope this is a help.

Jamie

Thanks so much for all of your advice. Yes, I was reffering to disk space. I'll try these things and see what happens. Thanks again.

Jgoo,

Been a bit hectic lately, but all the previous advice is excellent. Looks like a good free anti-virus package was recommended on the piano forum too

I'm downloading it right now. I'll keep you all posted if it finds anything.

YAAAH! No virus was detected. I don't know whats been eating up my disk space, but maybe once I defrag my system and close the gaps I will have more. I'm not exactly sure how that works. Thanks again for all of your help!

[ February 18, 2002: Message edited by: jgoo ]

jgoo, if you haven't done so, back up your important stuff right away. Although your problem might not be serious, it could be and it would be disastrous if you lost everything.