Diminished Disk Space after running file encryption

Neil Williams linux@codehelp.co.uk
Sun Jul 20 13:54:02 2003


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On Sunday 20 Jul 2003 12:00 pm, Daniel Carrera wrote:
> This definitelly has the looks of a swap file problem.  That's not the
> same thing as a temp file.  The swap file is used when you run out of RAM
> memmory.
>
> As for why you can't find it.  I'm not sure that the swap file shows up in
> the Windows file system.

[neil@mdk91 neil]$ ls /mnt/windows/windows/*.swp
/mnt/windows/windows/win386.swp*
It's usually a .swp file and usually in the top c:\windows directory. You n=
eed=20
to fiddle with the DOS command attrib to be able to delete it - and sometim=
es=20
Windows will then crash, you'll reboot and a new one is created. Quite a=20
harsh way of repairing a corrupted swap file but effective. Much easier to=
=20
shut down Windows, boot into Linux (or any OS that can read FAT partitions)=
=20
and delete it like a normal file. Windows will then recreate it when (if) y=
ou=20
boot back into Windows.

It should show up in Windows as a normal file with special 'attributes' - a=
t=20
least Windows doesn't pretend that these are anything like Unix permissions=
,=20
anyone with knowledge of DOS and attrib can change them.

> You cannot delete the swap file.  Nor would you want to.  You need it for
> the extra memmory.  I think that there's a way to set a maximum size for
> the swap file.  I'm not sure how.  Maybe someone else does.  This should

Control Panel -> system -> Advanced (IIRC, might be settings - it's the thi=
rd=20
tab along IIRC) -> Virtual Memory.
Most versions of Windows post Win95 'recommend' that the user isn't blessed=
=20
with sufficient kudos to tamper with the swap size. If you do, you will end=
=20
up with a fixed file size instead of the dynamic file size Windows prefers.=
=20
May be more useful to have a fixed size on a system so short of disc space.

> help.  I guess you can try to free-up some space on your computer, or you
> can zip the file before encrypting it.

Good idea. Just what is IN this 370Mb file?

BTW. I messed up my first reply - hit R instead of L in KMail and sent it=20
direct to Richard instead of the list. (How often have I done that!). I jus=
t=20
advised deleting temporary files to free up more space, how the swap file=20
should be deleted and re-created each reboot (which is a lot on Windows=20
machines) and how much easier it would be to do from a dual-boot machine.

=2D-=20

Neil Williams
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D
http://www.codehelp.co.uk
http://www.dclug.org.uk

http://slashdot.org/~codehelp


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