HP Mini SSD full

[snow-ice-mn]

My wife was given a HP mini for surfing the internet. The SSD was about 1/2 full when she got it if I remember correctly. She recently got a warning about being out of space. Since I told her not to store music or photos on the Mini, I figured she would be ok with the 16 GB. I ran Windirstat to find out what files were using up the space. The result was an unknown .dat file. Usually I can delete a file from within Windirstat. This file would not let me delete it. I was able to free up 150 MB but I want the space back. Any Idea what this file is and how I can remove it? Thanks.

[Ol'Tunzafun]

.dat files are created by any number of applications. Does the .dat file have a name like conf.dat or library.dat? What is the path to the file? Can she move some files to an SD card or a flash drive?

[BipolarBill]

Anytime that drive space gets as critical as it has in this case, it's time to upgrade the drive.

If you have enough space to install CCleaner, do so and run it to clear out useless temp data.

http://www.ccleaner.com/

Any way you slice it, a 16GB drive is not going to cut the mustard in the long run. I'm pretty sure that the mini will take a standard SATA notebook drive. What you can do is first verify that a standard notebook drive will work. If so, get the replacement drive. Get an external USB enclosure that can house the new drive and clone the old drive to a new one. Here's an article that can help:

http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=418&dcc=5005215425634441045116611671128589471047111191 21191311914461511216991711518116199720116211152246 23992411125109264727972811429116301053199321083310 13411835105361013711938463999401024110942634397441 14451164610547994810849101507351685261535254495556 560

[Steve R Jones]

Posting the name and location of the dat file sure would be a good idea;)

[Midknyte]

Additionally, what OS are you running?

[Ol'Tunzafun]

Any way you slice it, a 16GB drive is not going to cut the mustard in the long run. I'm pretty sure that the mini will take a standard SATA notebook drive. What you can do is first verify that a standard notebook drive will work. If so, get the replacement drive. Get an external USB enclosure that can house the new drive and clone the old drive to a new one. Here's an article that can help:

I agree. I recently replaced one of those small SSDs in an Acer netbook with a 1.8" 60GB iPod drive which is PATA with a ZIF connector. I believe that the HP Mini is the same. You will probably have to mount it with double sided foam tape.
The most noticeable difference was the speed. Those small SSDs can be dreadfully slow.
To clone, you will need a ZIF adapter for the external drive. A fresh install might be easier, though even that requires an external optical drive.

[snow-ice-mn]

I can't see the file in windows although Windows reports 15.2 GB used on the drive. I found the unknown file with Windirstat and usually it gives you the file info and the ability to delete the file. I don't have any more info other than the name Windirstat gives it, "unknown.dat" Running XP, fully patched. Thanks.

[Midknyte]

Do you know the full path to the "unknown.dat" file? Without a name, we can't give an accurate answer.

Did you do the normal tricks like shrinking or disabling system restore? Setting the recycle bin to a lower value like 2-5%?

Is hibernation enabled? If so, that dumps memory to the hiberfil.sys file on the hard drive.

[Ol'Tunzafun]

When you place the cursor in Windirstat on the unknown.dat file, use Ctrl+C to copy the path to the clipboard and paste it into your reply.