iMac hard drive problem?

[san1244]

I have a 4 gig hard drive. After totalling the size of all of my directories, I should have at least 2 gigs left. My hard drive says I have 248k left. I've opened all folders and there's nothing over 10 megs, EXCEPT for one, in my Outlook Express application folder, "Messages" reads that it's 1.7 gigs. That's impossible! I've gone in and permanently deleted my Deleted files, I cleaned out the Sent files, and housecleaned my Inbox which consists of files with no attachments, and there are only about 20 there. There's nothing that can take up 1.7 gigs of space. Someone told me to throw out my Outlook Express Preferences file in the System Folder, is that a safe thing to do?

Any ideas?

Thanks in advance,

Sandra

 

[TMA]

Deleting your Outlook prefs file is safe yes, but obviously you'll lose all your settings and I doubt that it's this file that's taking up all your HD. Get info on it to see (File menu, then select Get Info)

I'm assuming you're using OS 9 as OS X would die most horribly with only that amount of HD left.

Sounds to me like something in the Outlook folder has gone abit wrong, would probably be best if you could export or save any important message and settings, delete Outlook and then re-install.

 

[san1244]

iMac Hard Drive Problem?

TMC:

Thanks for your help. I'm running Mac OS 8.6 because that's what my customers require. When I go to Get Info for that Outlook Express messages directory, it says 1.7 gigs. But there's no way that could be correct.

 

[dukie92]

Outlook Express does not resize the file Messages even if you delete your mails. You should run again Outlook Express. Just after doubleclicking on the app you press the option key. OE will prompt you with an alert asking you whether you want to recompress the file. Just say yes and it should be OK.

 

[san1244]

SUCCESS!

Dukie92:

It worked! Thanks so much!!! You have helped me tremendously and I appreciate your sharing your knowledge with me. Kudos to you.

Best wishes,

Sandra

 

[dukie92]

Happy that an old French MacAfficionados could help you ! Now you should move to Panther on a new machine