If you need hard drive space to view a video, that is the problem.  I mean space 
beyond that needed to store the video file, typically a few tens of Megs for one 
file.  (At least that is the size of my downloaded YouTube files.)

For maximum performance, a program and data should fit into RAM, since that is far 
faster than any hard drive.  If the RAM is too small, Windows will start using swap 
space on disk, or "virtual" memory.

I once had a win95 PC that stumbled when opening/viewing WORD95 files that contained 
JPG images.  I checked the RAM usage and all 16 Meg were being used, and then it 
was then trying to use the virtual memory (hard drive).  I could hear the hard drive 
chirping.

I increased the RAM to 80 Meg and the same DOC file loaded and displayed almost instantaneously. 
 However, I could easily make a larger DOC file that caused the problem.





On a win98 PC with 128 Meg RAM I had a similar issue with image-editting software. 
 Once again, increasing RAM fixed the problem.

Thus, I suggest increasing RAM, or decreasing the size of videos viewed.  Hard drive 
space should not be an issue for viewing one file.

That said, under 200 Meg is getting pretty tight, given that winME makes restore 
points and otherwise can fill disk space fairly fast.  Getting a larger hard drive 
sounds like an obvious solution to an impending problem.  Any PC store should be 
able to install a larger drive and also transfer all files.  Or, you could do it 
with GHOST, TueImage, etc.  Be sured to request FAT32 format, instead of FAT16, which 
you might currently have.  FAT16 is limited to 2 Gig paritions, whereas FAT32 to 
go far larger.







On Wednesday, October 24, 2007 at 7:56 pm, Ron wrote:

>hi! i have a friend who i chat with on yahoo messenger and shes having problems 
viewing 

>videos online or even saved to her hard drive due to very low h.d space. 

> she's got a pretty old computer that was custom built and isnt one specific brand 

>at all, far from it.

>i've helped her locate her video adapter graphic controller drivers and reinstall 

>them due to her pictures being messed up, looking (grainy, and black and white) 
she 

>now has all her color back at 16 bits so i know she doesnt need to update that.

>here is the sad part :(

> she only has a maximum capacity of 1.96 gb on her h.d and only 192 mb left to use. 

>i know, thats really low. her ram is 92 mb but im thinking thats not that bad, i 

>used to run a computer when my good ones hard drive went out that only had 64 mb 

>ram and i could watch videos fine. 

>so im thinking that her skipping video is due to the low space alone, am i right?

> i know that the operating sytem alone takes up alot of her space that is gone but 

>would it be that much? almost the full 2 gb's?

>she doesnt have many things on her computer like extra programs and personal files 

>so im thinking all the space is for system files for the o.s.

> does anyone know any way to get her videos to work without constant skipping or 

>is it just impossible? i told her she needs to buy a better computer already and 

>she knows its true. :p thanks for any help in advance 

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