Terry's Computer Tips - Newsletter
March 25, 2007

Volume 2, Number 41 — Sunday, March 25, 2007

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

3.  Out of Hard Drive Space

Subscriber Peter Dunckelmann wrote me recently about a problem he was having with his computer.

Hi Terry Stockdale

For some time now I have been experiencing a lot of problems with my PC.

One day I experienced a severe PC crash; monitor went blank, PC switched itself off. As I re-booted I encountered a continuous bios beep. So every time now when I switch on my PC I just press any button to omit the bios beep.

I found instructions on the internet under heading: More Power Through RAM & Cache Tuning.

Following the instructions I attempted to defrag the RAM. And since then I cannot use my computer at all! When I switch on my computer it tells me 'low memory' and shows me 0 (zero) MB. I am unable to do anything!

Under Virtual Memory on the PC:
Start>Settings>Control>Panel>System>Performance
tab>Virtual Memory:
Hard disk: C:\0MB Free
Minimum: 0
Maximum: 2147483647

And the above is the result!

If I am not mistaken I have to defrag the system. But how can I work with zero system memory? How could I regain system memory? I am running WIN/Me. I am nearing to throwing the computer out the window.
So Please Hellllpppppppp!

Your urgent advice would be very much appreciated.

Best regards,
Peter Dunckelmann

There is a difference between RAM (which is the temporary memory in your computer that the computer actually uses to do its work and its calculations) and hard drive memory (which is the permanent storage for the operating system, your programs and your data.

Peter shows that his hard drive was completely full. But, since he was able to get that far, he obviously was able to boot into Windows.

Since virtual memory is nothing other than hard drive space that is grabbed by Windows so that Windows can pretend that it is RAM, he might haveused up all his hard drive space that way.

To diagnose what's happening in a case like this, first, go back to the Virtual Memory page and tell it to "let Windows handle the virtual memory" or whatever that setting is. Peter had it set to max at 2GB and that's pretty high for a Win/Me machine.

After changing that setting, reboot.

Then, you need to clean off some of the hard drive. Right-click on the Start Menu, then select Explore.

Now, check your My Documents folder for big files -- and delete anything that you don't really need.

In order to defragmnet your hard drive, you will have to have at least a few hundred MB of free space on the hard drive -- the more available space you make, the faster the defragmentation will work.

Don't worry about "defragmenting RAM" -- although there were some third-party utilities that claimed to do this, I never found any benefit. Anyway, RAM is automatically cleared when you reboot or shut down your computer.

Regarding the BIOS beep every time he reboots, he probably has to go into the CMOS/BIOS settings procedure. This is often done with the F2 key or the Delete key as the machine is first responding after power-on.

Simply entering the CMOS update mode and then exiting it may be enough to resolve the problem.

4.  Technological Obsolescence

Subscriber Ralph Campbell wrote me about the future — wondering how we'll be able to access all our good data with next (and next and next...) generation hardware:

Terry: It occurred to me, with the now demise of the floppy disc drive, what's going to happen to all our family photos, important documents and journals, genealogies, etc., down the road, when Microsoft and Apple continue to make software changes, memory methodology changes, and we can no longer plug in a flash drive, or a CD-ROM, and get anything back out?

Right now, I must gave about 30 ZIP discs with not only just back-up data but trip photo albums. Fortunately, my motherboard has a parallel port on it ( as does the Zip drive), But I'm sure such ports are things of the past. I have over 100 floppies, with data and applications the latter of which are bested by later material, so of not much use, except that files written on them can only be accessed using those applications. I count most of that as lost, for the time it would take to review, and upload to new media is prohibitive. But it just makes me wonder when this constant change is going to stop, and how secure are the things we save, today, on the media, and applications in use today. Already, I read of so many applications that ran on W98 which will not run on Vista. This is rhetorical, but what are your thoughts?
.Ralph C.

Unfortunately, you're right. When we advance to new technologies, we tend to lose the older data. I ran into that exact issue way, way back — I was a very enthusiastic VCR user. Unfortunately, I started with BetaMax, which lost the market war to VHS. While we can't avoid the impact of technological change, we can delay the impact on us. This sounds like time for a some of transitional devices:

1. USB Floppy Drive: many of today's computers don't come with floppy drives. Fortunately, there are USB floppy drives available at relatively cheap prices -- not much more than the price of an internal floppy drive. There are a number of them available, like this one from Sony.
2. Parallel Port Adapter: notebooks were among the first computers to leave out parallel ports. Therefore, there's a market for adapters like this one from Kensington that has one parallel port, one Ethernet port, and four USB ports.
3. External Hard Drive: these have gotten cheaper and cheaper. You can find 160GB and 250GB external hard drives for less than $100 fairly easily.

Also, remember that Windows XP has a "compatibility mode" that you can use to fool programs into thinking they're running on a different version of Windows. That may solve some problems.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

Volume 2, Number 41 — Sunday, March 25, 2007

Copyright © 2007 Terry A. Stockdale.  All rights reserved.