Machine Meltdown

BigJock2005

BigJock2005

Joined
Apr 23, 2005
Messages
87
Reaction score
0
Think my hard drive is about to meltdown...

I have various applications just hanging whenever I do anything involving a large file. Been trying to edit some photos fromt the digital cam which are about 7MB on PSP, it hangs when I select an icon (a thumbnail should pop up, but it's blank and the machine hangs) and also trying to cut some videos I took off the TV which are around 150MB each - I cut out the credits and adds, but at some point it just hangs again.

Each time, the desktop stays alive, but the app just won't respond. Have left it for ages, but the HDD light is just blinking every second or so and I can't recover the modified files. It's like big files are locking up the data bus or something and the machine just gives up.

I have decluttered it and done a defrag cos it was getting too full. Only 1.5GB left out of 40GB.

Running games and everything fine, just big files it can't deal with.

Any suggestions....?

Cheers.
 
Cheers FBS. Is that why it's only started happening as the disk's got full?

If I'm running with 1GB RAM why do I need loads of disk space, even for a 150-200MB file?

Thanks for the advice.

Jock
 
BigJock2005 said:
Cheers FBS. Is that why it's only started happening as the disk's got full?

If I'm running with 1GB RAM why do I need loads of disk space, even for a 150-200MB file?

Thanks for the advice.

Jock
Click to expand...

Because when you're rendering video files, or even using PSP for large images, space is needed for temporary files whilst software programs translate/work, swapping to and fro.

And apart from that that, if you're doing memory intensive work, Windows will look to use part of the disk for virtual memory.

Consider all that, and 1.5Gb free space is cutting it fine a wee bit ;)
 
It does not matter how much ram you have ... open a Word DOC and you will find a copy of it hidden, but live, on the HD ... in other words open a 10k DOC will need 20k min. ;)

:D
 
You better start clean it.

Your computer will start having problems if ya dont have about 20% freespace because virtual memory takes that much space.

If all the space is taken away from virtual memory the computer will crash.

Plug another hard drive in or start CD/DVD burnin before its to late.

Ya might try CCleaner to help ya take of all the internet junk files also.
 
I've already backed everything onto DVDs. Re the virtual memory, one thing I did do was create a 2GB partition and place the windows VM file on it. I fixed the windows VM size to 1.5GB. I think that speeds up the windows memory management no end. I think the windows VM pagefile is a major cause of defragging.

Only one thing for it... 200GB SATA-II here I come.

And all the fun that entails installing the drivers onto an Asus mobo!
 
Ya might try a freespace cleaner because files that are deleted are still there just hidden.

Do a freespace cleaner to cleanup the hidden stuff and defrag it again.

Ill look for a good freeware that has a freespace cleaner.
 
BigJock2005 said:
I've already backed everything onto DVDs. Re the virtual memory, one thing I did do was create a 2GB partition and place the windows VM file on it. I fixed the windows VM size to 1.5GB. I think that speeds up the windows memory management no end. I think the windows VM pagefile is a major cause of defragging.

Only one thing for it... 200GB SATA-II here I come.

And all the fun that entails installing the drivers onto an Asus mobo!
Click to expand...

If you want to save yourself a lot of time and bother, you may like to consider cloning/backup software.

If, for instance, you were to purchase Acronis True Image, you could fit the SATA drive and clone your current hard disk straight to it.

Then disconnect your current drive, configure bios to boot from new drive, and away you go.

Then you could connect old drive, format within Windows and use it as storage.

True image costs $50.00, about £25.00 I suppose, but it will save you a lot of time and agro.

And, um, there is actually a trial version you can download ;) [url=http://www.acronis.com/[/url]]True Image

And, as a postscript, TIV9.0 will not recognise a RAID 0 array when it comes to installing a backup, just so's you know.[/url]
 
Oh if ya have XP keep makin restore points before doing anything.

Yes movin virtual memory to another partition will help the defrags.
 
Well cheers for all the advice guys. To be honest, not that bothered about ghosting the drive - would just do a clean XP install on a new drive, and reload my apps. All my data is central so that can all come straight back from the DVDs (the rest is on the other ATA data drives in the case).

There was a huge debate on here (with reefsmoka I think) about installing SATA drivers on the Asus mobo though. You can only do it from a floppy (back into the junk box and dig that out) and there are plenty of articles from ppl who have had trouble getting their new SATA drives to boot.

Jock
 
Ya might benchmark your drive before clean installing just to make sure before do all that work. Most drives that are going bad wont pass a speed test, but only one out of ten drive are really bad. Some are bad and not makin noise.

Your drive might not be bad, it mabe software conflicts intead.

google for

drive speed test

Ya should find lots of benchmark freeware.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top