As for the disk full problem, what format is your disk. Although Wndows XP will gladly deal with large files, earlier version of Windows do not. Not user if it was the OS or the disk format (Fat32????) but you might be hitting fiels size limits rather than hard drive full limits.

Someone correct me if I get this wrong but I think you ideally want your drive formated as NTFS for 'best results'.

Dunno if this is your problem but worth checking out.