My PC runs on Win XP, with a P4 2.80GHz, 1.00 GB of RAM, all updated with MS updates with an 80 GB drive partitioned into the C and D drives with 20 and 60 GB storage respectively. After Win XP uses up its space I am left with about 13GB on C drive. Through the couple years I have filled most of the space on C and I am down to...where it gets interesting. Sometimes my computer shows 1.4 GB of space and sometimes as little as 100 MB of space. I RUN NORTON and sometimes it keeps a lot of protected files in the recycle bin, but even after cleaning it out it can vary where LITERALLY where one minute I have over 1 GB of space and next I have 300 MB of space. Any suggestions how to stop this from happening? ALSO, is it OK to compress old file and what does that do to them. Thank you.Microsft recommends 15% free drive space for Windows to function normally. You are significantly lower than that, so I would not be surprised if you are having problems, and you certainly will in the near FUTURE. Time to do some housecleaning.


What you are seeing is probably your swap file trying to cope without crashing the machine. Get ready!