Microsoft Word 2004 message "Disk Full, Can't Write to this Drive"

[Tom Griffin]

I have a similar problem to CGF on April 11 ("Disk full can't write to
this drive ")

In my case, I was editing a document I created and into which I have
pasted some pictures from Acrobat files. I had saved the file many
times during creation and editing. I had saved it the night before and
left it open overnight. Not knowing for sure that I had saved it, I
tried saving it again. This time I got the error message. It instructed
me to free up some space, save to another disk, etc.

The hard drive I was saving to had 77GB free. I tried saving it to
different locations than the original folder (such as desktop, etc.)
and to an external HD. I also tried saving it to a compact flash
through a reader connected to USB port.

I am using PowerBook G4 with 2 GB ram and 120GB hard drive.

 

[Rick]

I am having the same problem. Typical Microsoft, ignoring a bug that I
have seen since version X on my iBook.
I have 2004 on a MacBook Pro with 2gigs of ram and 100 gig HD. With 55
gig free, there is more than enough space.

I guess we will have to wait until office 2010 before Microsponge ships
a truely tested and well performing version of office.

Microsoft, where is the fix?

 

[John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]]

Nope:

That should be "Typical Apple"

It's an Apple bug that they won't fix because they have discovered that it
mainly makes Microsoft look bad

Word uses an advanced form of the File Locking command, and in OS X it's not
working right since OS 10.2.

I am pretty sure that Microsoft is no longer interested in this bug (I've
been wrong before: go on, someone surprise me!). But this bug is not in
Microsoft's code, so they *can't* do anything about it.

The Microsoft team is flat out on the next version of Office. You want this
one fixed, complain to Apple.

Cheers

I am having the same problem. Typical Microsoft, ignoring a bug that I
have seen since version X on my iBook.
I have 2004 on a MacBook Pro with 2gigs of ram and 100 gig HD. With 55
gig free, there is more than enough space.

I guess we will have to wait until office 2010 before Microsponge ships
a truely tested and well performing version of office.

Microsoft, where is the fix?

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410

 

[Florian Hartge]

That should be "Typical Apple"

It's an Apple bug that they won't fix because they have discovered that it
mainly makes Microsoft look bad

Unfortunately blaming anyone will not help me proceeding with my work. Is
there any help or workaround to this?

 

[Dave Minerath]

Agreed--I get this periodically, and the only way I have found so far to get
through is to copy the entire document to the Clipboard, close out Word
without saving, open a new Word document and paste back to the new document.

Some formatting gets lost, and it's a giant PITA.

That should be "Typical Apple"

It's an Apple bug that they won't fix because they have discovered that it
mainly makes Microsoft look bad

Unfortunately blaming anyone will not help me proceeding with my work. Is
there any help or workaround to this?

 

[Dave Minerath]

I also found this link...

http://word.mvps.org/Mac/DiskFullError.html

Of course, it says that Word 2004 users should rarely see this error, which
is exactly WHY, as a Word 2004 user, I get it periodically.

That should be "Typical Apple"

It's an Apple bug that they won't fix because they have discovered that it
mainly makes Microsoft look bad

Unfortunately blaming anyone will not help me proceeding with my work. Is
there any help or workaround to this?

 

[John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]]

No

Save locally and use Finder to move it to the server. That's the only
reliable solution.

If you're not ON a server, get back to us: there are some things you can do.

That should be "Typical Apple"

It's an Apple bug that they won't fix because they have discovered that it
mainly makes Microsoft look bad

Unfortunately blaming anyone will not help me proceeding with my work. Is
there any help or workaround to this?

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410

 

[John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]]

Yeah: Pisses me off more than anyone since I was part of the group who
wrote the article

Ultimately, it's still not fixed, Microsoft and Apple are still pointing
fingers at each other, and I feel really frustrated

Cheers

I also found this link...

http://word.mvps.org/Mac/DiskFullError.html

Of course, it says that Word 2004 users should rarely see this error, which
is exactly WHY, as a Word 2004 user, I get it periodically.

That should be "Typical Apple"

It's an Apple bug that they won't fix because they have discovered that it
mainly makes Microsoft look bad

Unfortunately blaming anyone will not help me proceeding with my work. Is
there any help or workaround to this?

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410

 

[Dave Minerath]

I had the error again yesterday, and the workarounds didn't work. That was
somewhat expected since I run Word 2004 and the workarounds reportedly don't
work with Word 2004. I never got the "clear the undo stack?" option either.

This brings up two questions:

(1) Is there a way to manually clear the undo stack?

(2) Is there a way to change the number of "undo" steps saved?

Dave

 

[CyberTaz]

Hi Dave -

I was unable to track down all the prior posts so forgive me if I repeat
anything already covered. I'm making the following assumptions;

You are dealing with files stored on your hard drive, *not* working directly
in files stored on removable media, and

Your HD has ample free space (20% as a minimum rule-of-thumb), and

You are not running other "disk/memory-hungry" programs (such as PhotoShop)
at the time this occurs, and

You aren't using any utilities or add-ins that might influence the issue or
synching with iDisk, etc., and

That you have turned OFF the vast array of Word Prefs that might contribute.

I don't know of any way to clear the stack short of closing/reopening the
doc or quitting/re-launching Word, and there is no Pref setting for
regulating the number of Undos. However, the "clear" prompt not appearing
suggests that the problem *may not* be related to that in the first place.

Is this happening in a particular doc (or similar docs) or is it random
regardless of length, content, etc.? Is Track Changes being used? What other
specifics can you offer, even if they don't seem relevant?

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[Dave Minerath]

Your assumptions are all correct; I am working only on the local drive, with
10 GB free out of 40 GB. Word is the only program running at the time.

I'm not sure what you mean by the "vast array of Word Prefs." The only one
that comes to mind is the autosave option, which I have set to save every 5
minutes and make a backup on each regular save; the fast save option is
turned off.

I generally don't use the "track changes" option unless I'm editing
something sent to me, and then I've never had the problem.

The only thing that comes to mind is the use of equations. At first I used
to use the MS Equation Editor that came with Word, but it also happens when
using MathType. I thought I also saw somewhere that editing documents in
print layout mode, with headers and footers turned on, also contributes to
the problem. I do all my work in print layout, and almost always have at
least a page number footer.

Perhaps I should use the normal layout for a while and see what happens.

 

[John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]]

Hi Dave:

Yeah, I think you've covered all the bases prefs-wise.

Regrettably, internally this error message is a fairly generic "Unable to
obtain handle to open another file (n)" kind of error that can have a wide
range of causes.

Clearing the undo stack simply releases a bunch of file handles, which
should enable the current document to save if the problem really was a
shortage of file handles. Word needs a new file handle to write the new
version of the file, which it must do before deleting the old version, when
it saves.

One thing that has also been reported to cause this error message it is the
presence of corrupted equations (MathType or Equation Editor: same thing) in
the document. I never worked out how that could happen.

One workaround worth persisting with is running in Normal view. Disabling
your antivirus would also be worth it, as a diagnostic step. It is
conceivable that if the AV is not releasing the file correctly, you would
get this error. On the other hand, if the AV is not releasing the file,
that may be because it contains a virus

Cheers

Your assumptions are all correct; I am working only on the local drive, with
10 GB free out of 40 GB. Word is the only program running at the time.

I'm not sure what you mean by the "vast array of Word Prefs." The only one
that comes to mind is the autosave option, which I have set to save every 5
minutes and make a backup on each regular save; the fast save option is
turned off.

I generally don't use the "track changes" option unless I'm editing
something sent to me, and then I've never had the problem.

The only thing that comes to mind is the use of equations. At first I used
to use the MS Equation Editor that came with Word, but it also happens when
using MathType. I thought I also saw somewhere that editing documents in
print layout mode, with headers and footers turned on, also contributes to
the problem. I do all my work in print layout, and almost always have at
least a page number footer.

Perhaps I should use the normal layout for a while and see what happens.

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410

 

[Dave Minerath]

I use Norton AV, so I'll try disabling NAV autoprotect next time I get the
error. I'll also try using the normal layout for now.

 

[Dave Minerath]

With a disabled Norton AV and working in normal view, I got the error after
only about 4 equations. If I copy the entire document, close Word entirely
(not just the file) and paste into a blank document, that lets me save and
continue.

I've also noticed (not sure if it's related or not) that after I have the
trouble, I'll occasionally have an equation that shows up as a picture; I
can't edit it anymore as an equation, only as a picture.

Quite frustrating, as I deal with lots of equations on a regular basis.

 

[John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]]

Hi Dave:

I've also noticed (not sure if it's related or not) that after I have the
trouble, I'll occasionally have an equation that shows up as a picture; I
can't edit it anymore as an equation, only as a picture.

Yep. I would say that's not only "related" but diagnostic.

With a bit of luck, Bob Matthews from Design Science will be along in a
moment with some insight on the problem.

But yes: Equation Editor/Mathtype saves both an equation in a container
within the document, and a graphical representation of it. During the Save,
Word attempts to validate all the embedded objects to make sure it's not
writing out trash to the disk.

At that point, it's failing because the code in the equation has been
munged.

Tracked Changes is the most likely culprit here. I never edit with tracked
changes on: it breaks too many things. I also run with all the "Hidden"
characters revealed when I am editing, to make sure that I am accurately
selecting around critical structures such as paragraph marks, tables, and
text boxes.

Cheers

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410

 

[Beth Rosengard]

I think Bob flags messages that have obvious keywords in their titles, like
"equations", "MathType", etc. If he doesn't reply in a day or two, I
suggest reposting with a different title.

--
***Please always reply to the newsgroup!***

Beth Rosengard
MacOffice MVP

Mac Word FAQ: <http://word.mvps.org/Mac/WordMacHome.html>

 

[Clive Huggan]

On 30/5/06 8:45 PM, in article C0A25F50.39BF1%[email protected], "John McGhie

Tracked Changes is the most likely culprit here. I never edit with tracked
changes on: it breaks too many things.

<snip>

I never use Track Changes either, except on very short documents that won't
be developed later into longer ones. And even then ...

For anyone who might think this will make things *too* difficult for some
types of amending of Word documents, the way to have your cake and eat it is
to leave Track Changes off, then when you want to see the changes do a Save
As (add "compared" to the new file title) then choose Tools menu => Track
changes => Compare documents and navigate to the previous version against
which you want to compare the new one.

That way, the original document (which of course you go back to when you
resume work) never becomes burdened by the heavy consequences of keeping
Track Changes on.

Cheers,

Clive Huggan
Canberra, Australia
(My time zone is 5-11 hours different from the US and Europe, so my
follow-on responses to those regions can be delayed)
============================================================

 

[Dave Minerath]

Thanks, I'll be sure to do that.

 

[Dave Minerath]

Cool, I didn't know you could do that. I usually don't track changes
either, unless I'm reviewing something sent to me for somebody else to
approved/reject changes.

 

[Dave Minerath]

While troubleshooting another problem that I have linked to MathType, I
found this link:

http://www.dessci.com/en/support/support/tsn/TSN64.htm

One act that brings them up is cutting and pasting equations directly into a
Word document (which I've done) instead of using the MathType editor to do
it.

In the end, after providing extensive information on how to work around the
problem, Design Science points out that, ultimately:

"Only Microsoft can address this problem with Microsoft Word. We encourage
all users who experience this problem to report it to Microsoft so that they
can appreciate the need to devote additional programming resources to
addressing it. While we have reported this problem to them and they address
it in their Knowledge Base articles, it is important that their customers
continue to report their experience of this problem so that Microsoft can
appreciate how widespread it is."

So there ya have it.