# The incredible shriking hard-drive... huh?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-incredible-shriking-hard-drive-huh/133430>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [October 22, 2002, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-incredible-shriking-hard-drive-huh/133430 "2002-10-22T21:28:28Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![gonzoron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a6a055/32.png) [@gonzoron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzoron)\
**Post date:** [October 22, 2002, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-incredible-shriking-hard-drive-huh/133430/1 "2002-10-22T21:28:28Z")

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OK, weirdest windows issue I’ve seen yet. GonzoGal has a Laptop with Windows ME. Yesterday, she wanted to check how much space was left on C:. So she opened “my computer” and highlighted C:. Bottom of the window says 700MB. She clicks off it, then clicks on it again: 650MB. again: 600MB!!

It appears her harddrive is filling up, despite no other programs running. She rebooted, and the space was back up to 700MB, but then it started dropping again. Macaffee Virusscan came up with nothing.

Any clue?

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**Author:** ![handy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5a626/32.png) [@handy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handy)\
**Post date:** [October 22, 2002, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-incredible-shriking-hard-drive-huh/133430/2 "2002-10-22T22:09:55Z")

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It could be her virtual memory settings.

Why don’t you search for large files? Then you can see what’s getting bigger.

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**Author:** ![Eleusis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Eleusis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eleusis)\
**Post date:** [October 22, 2002, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-incredible-shriking-hard-drive-huh/133430/3 "2002-10-22T22:29:20Z")

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Yep. The Windows Swap file.

I found this way to [Rid your your Windows 98/ME clients of the dynamic swap file](http://216.239.33.100/search?q=cache:kEBuXZoH_J0C:builder.com.com/article.jhtml%3Fid%3Dt01220020822shu01.htm+windows+ME+swap+file&hl=en&lr=lang_en&ie=UTF-8) but the site has gone to paid access. Google cache to the rescue! (sorry about the obnoxious highlighting)

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**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\
**Post date:** [October 22, 2002, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-incredible-shriking-hard-drive-huh/133430/4 "2002-10-22T23:14:20Z")

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can you give a link to page 2?

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**Author:** ![Eleusis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Eleusis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eleusis)\
**Post date:** [October 23, 2002, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-incredible-shriking-hard-drive-huh/133430/5 "2002-10-23T20:19:16Z")

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[Full article](http://216.239.33.100/search?q=cache:ra5MX_wbOrQC:builder.com.com/printerfriendly.jhtml%3Fid%3Dt01220020822shu01.htm++site:builder.com.com+windows+ME+swap+file&hl=en&lr=lang_en&ie=UTF-8)