Excel won't save: disk full error message

[visualuser]

I'm trying to save an excel spreadsheet and I'm getting a message that the disk is full. I have 20 gb left free. When I try to save on a network share, I get the same message. When I try to save it under a different folder and with a different name I get the message. What is up with this? I think maybe the spreadsheet may be too big? Anyone experienced this? Thanks.


---------------These didn't help at all -----------

http://support.microsoft.com/search/preview.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q223976

http://support.microsoft.com/search/preview.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q214245

http://support.microsoft.com/search/preview.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q223816

 

[Dreamboat]

Make sure your hard drive is cleaned up.

http://www.thewordexpert.com/cleanyourpc.htm

Perhaps it's not yelling about the space where you're trying to save but more about a problem with its temporary file. If you still cannot get it to work after you've cleaned your hard drive up, then I'd consider a registry edit on Excel. Let me know how this goes, and I'll give you the regedit if you need it.

http://www.TheWordExpert.com

 

[visualuser]

Dreamboat,

Well, he didn't have much in c:\temp and I had him delete the files out of c:\windows\temp, but he still got the message. I had the guy try to open another spreadsheet and save it, but he got the same message. I checked his resources and they said 61% free. He is on Windows Me
( sorry for him.. ) He ended up attaching the file to an email and sending it to someone. They opened it and he was ok with what was saved.

I still don't know what the deal was. Any other suggestions now that I told you this? By the way, the excel spreadsheet was over 2 mb. It contained many macros with about 15 sheets. I saw a tech note where it said this may happend if it has over a million cells.

http://support.microsoft.com/search/preview.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q223976

Thanks.

 

[Dreamboat]

Did you follow ALL the instructions on cleaning the hard drive? There's much more than just the temp folder.

http://www.TheWordExpert.com

 

[visualuser]

Dreamboat,

No I didn't do them all, but will tell user to do them. They freak out when you start telling them to delete things. Gosh users are so paranoid! Do you know where I'm coming from? Thanks for your help.

 

[GlennUK]

I know you've already had a lot of help on this, but I thought I'd just let you know the causes that I've had with this problem in the past.

I've sometimes been working on a workbook opened from a network drive, that gives the disk full error message when trying to save ( many gigs free on the network drive, megabytes free on the PC ). Once the message has appeared ( usually followed by another message saying Document Not Saved ), then I find it is impossible to save the workbook anywhere, under any name, having tried different network resources, different folders on my PC, even tried a floppy, but with no success.

The cause was found to be network polling slowing down to a point where Excel "lost" the connection ( I know this sounds ridiculous, as the drive is still visible and other files can be opened and saved while all this is going on ), and then, for the particular file that is open, Excel not knowing how to cope with it.

The only way to try and rescue any work that's hanging like this is to try to copy ALL items from the hanging workbook into a new workbook, and then save that.

Glenn.

 

[Dreamboat]

Good one, Glenn. There's issues with NT4 servers that haven't got a specific patch, and I believe also with NT4 servers that run Norton (though these could be the same issue/patch, I forget).

http://www.TheWordExpert.com

 

[visualuser]

GlennUk,

Hmm, I'm been on them bad to upgrade their 10mb hubs. They have about 25 users. Their network is really slow!

 

[thekon]

Its not the network i think. I got a user seeing this message with a stand-alone computer, with fresh installation (2 months, formating disk, win98, office2000), working only excel, but quite complicated spreadsheets. No solution till now...

 

[visualuser]

thekon,

How many sheets did it have. This one guy had 10 or more and it was an "odbc" type where it connected to our sql database. The guy went into it several times saving data in there. I saw a note where it said if you save it so many times with a lot of data that you migh get this message. Hmmm....

 

[thekon]

visualuser,

About 80+ sheets, 3MB file, no odbc, no charts, no icons, only calculations, visual basic and some dropdowns.

 

[visualuser]

thekon,

Dang, someone is doing some major accounting! I guess I need to know the specs or what Excel will handle. Anyone know how much excel 2000 will handle? How much data can be put into one workbook?

 

[Killian01]

yeah, I've seen this one a lot and no real answer has come up. (corp network, Off97, NT4)
the lastest example was a fairly small file (<1mb) about 20 sheets, not much data, some formulae, no charts
Ended up copying each sheet into a fresh workbook but when i got to the 2nd last, the copy failed and excel crashed.
This happened everytime so I cut the data on that sheet and pasted special>values and it was fine.
I couldn't find an problem with any of the formulae on that sheet and they all worked but something there was definately the source of the problem.
My conclusion? Either some obscure formula wackiness made Excel THINK the file was (a helluvalot) larger than it was when it calculated b4 the save, or MS error trapping that is just taking a general stab at an error that it's not really sure about (like my personal favorite and highly informative &quot;PowerPoint found an error it couldn't corect...&quot
I think the answer's in a formula somewhere - but I havn't found it yet

K

 

[macbone]

try changing the size of your 'swap file'