how do i fix a memory leak in my hard drive?

Post by **panasonic** » Tue Nov 29, 2005 11:54 pm

is there a way to fix a memory leak. my hd has been losing memory constantly even though i continuoulsy delete files. any help is greatly apprecitated

Website · Post by **BasouKazuma** » Wed Nov 30, 2005 4:29 am

Do you have just one partition? AND how big is your hard drive?

If you're talking about your C:, then the memory is probably being used for cache data. This is a normal thing. When you surf the net, things are downloaded and temporarily stored on your hard drive. You can use Disk Cleanup to delete some of those files.

I find that it's best to make sure that you have more than 5 gigs of free space on your C: if you do a lot of downloading and internet browsing. But then again, that's cuz i have a big HDD.

Post by **panasonic** » Wed Nov 30, 2005 7:58 pm

i have a 40 gig hd and its partitioned into C(10 gigis) and d(30 gigs). all my dl/ing is done on my d drive and programs like ms word and windows xp are on my c drive. and yes ive cleaned the cached many times. so that isnt the problem. i think my hd my be broken or something. but there might be some program out there that can fix this problem and seeing how there r lots of 1337 ppl on this forum maybe someone knows the solution to this problem of mine.

Post by **Darnoc** » Wed Nov 30, 2005 8:08 pm

Just try Windows Tetris (also known as Disk DeFragmenter)

The aim of the game is to get those little square holes filled up with different colors without allowing the screensaver to turn on.
(There's a great cheat for this game but it completely destroys the gameplay - turn the screensaver off

)

Nah, but seriously I'd try to defrag those partitions

Post by **panasonic** » Wed Nov 30, 2005 10:27 pm

i did that too, thats wuts making me scratch my head

Website · Post by **BasouKazuma** » Wed Nov 30, 2005 11:46 pm

When you clear the cache, about how much space does that free up?

Also, how much space is left on your individual drives and which drive is losing memory?

If you have the money, i suggest just simply upgrading to a bigger HDD. It will save you a lot of headaches.

Post by **panasonic** » Thu Dec 01, 2005 9:22 pm

both are losing space. i should have roughly 8 gigs free on my d drive(total30gigs) and roughly 3 gigs free on my c drive (total 10 gigs). however my d drive has 3 gigs free and my c drive 200 megs free

Website · Post by **BasouKazuma** » Sat Dec 03, 2005 3:42 pm

Hmmm, maybe your HDD is just dying on you.

I'm at a loss, I'll try to ask a friend of mine. He's more technically inclined than I am. So if he doesnt know, you're screwed.

Post by **halfnhalf** » Sat Dec 03, 2005 6:58 pm

find a independant pc store nearby you and ask them question, or call up the brand your hard drive is.

worst case senario is that you have to toss this hard drive a lose all your porn.

Post by **psi29a** » Sat Dec 03, 2005 7:13 pm

First to clear up some computer jargon:

Memory is typically referred to as RAM, while a disk-drive is a kind of memory, but is just reffered to as HD or storage as it is slower than RAM (memory).

When talking about a 'memory leak', it is 100% in relation to RAM in which a piece of software has a bug and when it runs over long periods of time tries to allocate more RAM to use and never gives it back to the Operating System (OS). Software that tells the OS to write out to the HD (storage) does so specifically and typically (99.99%) isn't a bug.

If you HD (storage) is getting filled up, and you can't account for it, then you need to get on top of that to figure out what is causing the OS to write to the HD. You might want to keep an eye on internet traffic, a perfectly valid reason is that your computer is a zombie or worse a Warez FTP server and anonymous people are uploading and downloading stuff.

Check your process list (ctrl-alt-del to see your task list) and keep an eye out on what is running, what programs are taking lots of CPU time, enable more columns and see what else they are doing. If you are running winME or earlier... your are SOL in my book.

On average, what is the rate of consumption? You loosing a Gig a day or something? Keep in mind that Steam and other applications like to "pre-load" content onto your computer while you are asleep. Another reason to keep an eye on your Internet traffic.

Post by **panasonic** » Mon Dec 05, 2005 9:19 pm

thanks for all the advice guys, but i just bought a new hard drive and plan to just wipe the old one and put all my crap on it so that my new one wont have any problems hopefully