Erroneous "Disk full" message in Word 2000

[Tom Filipi]

I just experienced a problem that I want to avoid repeating. I loaded a
document from my USB flash drive onto my notebook and made extensive edits.
I then tried to save the result on the notebook's hard drive, but got the
message "The disk is full. Free some space on this drive, or save the
document on another drive". I only had two other files open at the time and
there was over 30 GB free on the hard drive. I closed all other files, but
still couldn't save. Tried to save back to the flash drive & got the same
message. End result - I lost _all_ of over six hours worth of edits on a
very complex document. Any suggestions as to why this happened and how I can
avoid a repeat?
Tom F

Tech details: HP/compaq nx9600 (Pentium 4 3.6GHz 512MB RAM, 50 GB HD)
running Windows XP PRo SP2, logged on with Admin privileges, the USB drive is
a 4GB "my flash" with only 1% of its capacity used.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Don't ever open a document on any type of removable drive or media. Instead,
first copy it to the HD and open it from there. When you open a Word
document, Word creates at least one (and often multiple) temporary file(s)
in the same folder. These can quickly multiply to consume available space,
though that's not the only possible issue. The transfer speed is another,
along with the possibility of removing the drive/disk prematurely, etc.