caffreys
asked on
Hard drive full - how do I delete stuff????
At work we currently have a 9Gig hard drive which is used as a data historian for our plant control system via Wonderware InSQL. The problem we have is that the hard drive is full and we can't delete any old files as there is no room for the recycle bin to hold the data to be deleted (or so I'm told by out IT dept.) Is there anyway in which to delete the old data (or any other files I don't need) so I can get some disk drive space back. The software being run is Windows NT, with Wonderware InSQL. There are no utilities in the Wonderware software which allows me to delete data now the hard drive is full.
Most of this info comes from the bloke who should have been looking after the server with the hard drive in it, so I'm only going by what he has said. If anybody has any ideas then please help!!! Or if the info about the inability to delete files due to a full hard drive is wrong then please let me know and I'll kill the lying git!
cheers
Caffreys
Most of this info comes from the bloke who should have been looking after the server with the hard drive in it, so I'm only going by what he has said. If anybody has any ideas then please help!!! Or if the info about the inability to delete files due to a full hard drive is wrong then please let me know and I'll kill the lying git!
cheers
Caffreys
Can you delete some fonts? Can you Add/Remove any programs? Is there anything in the recycle bin? If so, you can empty it and free some space.
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
Well...
My question to you is ....
is Wonderware InSQL software like microsoft sql where you allocate hard drive space for a database?
I never heard of Wonderware so I am just curious. Because if that is the case then....an example we have here is our customer has their o/s on C: and they allocate ALL hard drive space on D: for oracle or sql. Even though there is not alot of data in the database, the database file takes up THE ENTIRE DRIVE.
1. If that isnt the case some key parts to check is....
is the i386 directory on the drive? If so can you move it to a file server or burn to cd or maybe it is already on cd.
2. It is a server but you might want to see if the C:\temp, C:\WINNT\TEMP or C:\WINNT\Temporary internet files have stuff that you can delete. this stuff is usually not needed.
3. You could goto Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs, Windows Setup and uninstall a few features that are not needed....this isnt going to free up that much space.
4. If these are files something you may want to look at is possibly compressing the drive or certain folders. You will need to make sure the File System is NTFS
Hope they helped
__________________________
Thanks
Jeffrey J. Riggs
CSC - NT Server Support
Onsite @ Motiva Enterprises LLC
Delaware City Refinery
__________________________
My question to you is ....
is Wonderware InSQL software like microsoft sql where you allocate hard drive space for a database?
I never heard of Wonderware so I am just curious. Because if that is the case then....an example we have here is our customer has their o/s on C: and they allocate ALL hard drive space on D: for oracle or sql. Even though there is not alot of data in the database, the database file takes up THE ENTIRE DRIVE.
1. If that isnt the case some key parts to check is....
is the i386 directory on the drive? If so can you move it to a file server or burn to cd or maybe it is already on cd.
2. It is a server but you might want to see if the C:\temp, C:\WINNT\TEMP or C:\WINNT\Temporary internet files have stuff that you can delete. this stuff is usually not needed.
3. You could goto Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs, Windows Setup and uninstall a few features that are not needed....this isnt going to free up that much space.
4. If these are files something you may want to look at is possibly compressing the drive or certain folders. You will need to make sure the File System is NTFS
Hope they helped
__________________________
Thanks
Jeffrey J. Riggs
CSC - NT Server Support
Onsite @ Motiva Enterprises LLC
Delaware City Refinery
__________________________
ditto above. The data s/b on d: and where dB takes over entire drive, cleanup of temp files helps but not really.
Trash can should be emptied. In fact, most of us never use recycle bin, considering it ineffective wase of space.
If database is full, quite likely it in itself is disorganized and full of bad or deleted records. As in other sytems, it needs administration for its own compaction, backup, cleanup, purges, compressions, etc. There would be jobs that are supposed to be scheduled by admin that are not being run properly, if admin knows not what they are, tell 'm to RTFM.
Trash can should be emptied. In fact, most of us never use recycle bin, considering it ineffective wase of space.
If database is full, quite likely it in itself is disorganized and full of bad or deleted records. As in other sytems, it needs administration for its own compaction, backup, cleanup, purges, compressions, etc. There would be jobs that are supposed to be scheduled by admin that are not being run properly, if admin knows not what they are, tell 'm to RTFM.
You could add a new larger hardrive, migrate over to it, and be done, leaving the old HD behind if you like. If this is mission critical data, should we assume that this is on a RAID array? If so that will complicate matters. If not, then the question becomes why?
In a "got to get some space" scenario, you might look at reducing the size of Virtual Memory if you can afford it (or reallocating if there are other partitions). You did not mention how your disk is partitioned and if it is partitioned, which partition is full. If it is partitioned and the partition that is full is not C:, then the above suggestions won't help. Of the 9GB, do you know how much is being used by the SQL software?
What is partitioning? Any news?
Some apps have trouble over 8 GB.
NT runs best, IMO, 2 GB for c: for OS, as FAT (for troubleshooting), the rest for the data, ntfs.
By partitioning, you can better manage temporary space. NT needs temp space for temp files, like for printing, etc. This needs to be separate, so you can keep application from killing the OS. (BTW, this situation for temp files exists all OS, not only NT, this is not meant as a slap at OS).
Running non-32bit S/W can, on occasion, consume disk. Hit me twice. Somehow, simple small text file ended up sized to remaining disk space. Had to take server offline, reboot, kill file and rebuild it (the little text file, actually, it may have been formatted comma delimited, I forget, except I could print it and it was < 2 pages). So rebuild was <1min. My success (once figured out) had much to do with the file being on the d: drive, which was out of room. But with NT on c:, the OS still had room, So simple progs like Edit & NotePad could still run.
Some apps have trouble over 8 GB.
NT runs best, IMO, 2 GB for c: for OS, as FAT (for troubleshooting), the rest for the data, ntfs.
By partitioning, you can better manage temporary space. NT needs temp space for temp files, like for printing, etc. This needs to be separate, so you can keep application from killing the OS. (BTW, this situation for temp files exists all OS, not only NT, this is not meant as a slap at OS).
Running non-32bit S/W can, on occasion, consume disk. Hit me twice. Somehow, simple small text file ended up sized to remaining disk space. Had to take server offline, reboot, kill file and rebuild it (the little text file, actually, it may have been formatted comma delimited, I forget, except I could print it and it was < 2 pages). So rebuild was <1min. My success (once figured out) had much to do with the file being on the d: drive, which was out of room. But with NT on c:, the OS still had room, So simple progs like Edit & NotePad could still run.
When you delete the files in question...
Hold down the Left Hand Shift Key. This will the files to be deleted without ever going through the recycle bin.
This should make life little bit easier for you !
Tony
Hold down the Left Hand Shift Key. This will the files to be deleted without ever going through the recycle bin.
This should make life little bit easier for you !
Tony
You should contact Wonderware about whether they have a way to purge or archive old data or index files to reduct the size. If you can't and unless you can significantly increase space by dumping the recycle bin and deleting temp files as suggested above you need to purchase a larger hard drive. If you're that tight on space you're going to end up needing one anyway. If you can't easily move the database to another drive try using Server Magic to move what's on C: to the larger drive, make it the boot drive, then you'll have the old drive for additional space.
dpacheco:
It is normal protocol to answer with a comment and not a proposed answer and leave it to the person that posed the question to award points if it solves the problem (unless you are 100% sure it solves the problem). By answering, you have locked the question and other experts may not have the opportunity to respond.
It is normal protocol to answer with a comment and not a proposed answer and leave it to the person that posed the question to award points if it solves the problem (unless you are 100% sure it solves the problem). By answering, you have locked the question and other experts may not have the opportunity to respond.
Caffreys, have you found a solution? Have any of the comments helped?
Sorry, is there a way to change it to a comment.
I think the only person that can change it is the person that posed the question and he has not responded since his original question was posted. Probably just as well that experts not spend anymore time on this.
dpacheo, you ca nreport this to CS and ask their assistance to change you propose answer to a comment instead.
Regards
Regards
ASKER
Sorry I haven't been back to this question yet, but I've been trying to get the guy who is responsible for this hard disk problem to get his arse in gear and try the suggestions everyone has so kindly put on. He doesn't want to delete anything like fonts, he only wants to get rid of the old data. We are going to copy the old data he doesn't want on to a CD then delete it from the hard disk. We tried the solution of holding down the shift key when deleting so it doesn't go to the recycle bin, and that seemed to work on another fairly full hard drive, but I'll keep you posted on what happens when we try it on the problem drive.
Caffreys
Caffreys
ASKER
Sorry for the delay people! Well, eventually tried the Shift-delete thing yesterday, and lo and behold, we have a winner!! Thanks for all the useful comments, we will be implementing most of them on other drives.
Thanks again everyone
Caffreys
Thanks again everyone
Caffreys