You receive the "Disk is Full" error message when you save a workbook in Excel

In Microsoft Excel, when you save your workbook, you may receive the following error message followed by:

These errors will appear when you save your workbook to a disk that does not have have enough free space.

For example, this problem will occur if you open a 710-kilobyte (KB) workbook saved from a 1.44-megabyte (MB) floppy disk, and you make changes that add to the file size and save the workbook to the same disk. See the More Information section for additional information on disk space requirements for file sizes.

To avoid these error messages, copy the file to your hard disk drive or to another disk that has sufficient free space before opening it in Excel. If you need to store the file on a floppy disk, first save the file to the hard disk and then copy it onto the floppy disk using Windows Explorer.

When you work in a file, Microsoft Excel saves the file with a temporary file name (.tmp file extension) and places this file in the same directory as the original file. When you save the file, the original file is then deleted and the temporary file is renamed with the original file name. Therefore, the amount of free disk space on the drive must be greater than twice the file size being saved. If it is not, then you will receive the message "Disk is Full."

For example, if you open a 710-kilobyte (KB) workbook, and you make changes that add 10kb to the file size and save the workbook the disk must have over 720kb x 2 or more than 1.44mb of space for Excel to work with this file.

For more information about the process that Microsoft Excel uses for saving files, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: