Galaxy S (i9000) Internal Memory Problem

Ok, so this happened a few weeks ago now, but I've only just got around to trying to sort it out.

So, I got the Galaxy S at the beginning of December 2010. I installed quite a few apps, and always downloaded the updates. My internal SD Card got down to around 2.2GB, and my Internal Phone Storage got to 1.62GB. (I also have a 16GB external SD card with 473MB remaining, but I don't think that's relevant). Anyway, aabout a month ago, I downloaded Angry Birds from the market, but it was taking a LONG time to download. It was doing like, 1% every 5-10 seconds, whereas it usually downloads really quickly). So I cancelled the download, and tried re-downloading it a few hours later. This time, the download happened fast, and it successfully installed.

Cut to a few weeks ago...

I opened my camera (I save my pictures to the phone SD card, not my external SD card), and it came up with a message saying "Warning: Not enough memory". Before this, in the corner where it tells you how many pictures you can take/save, I know for a fact that it was WELL over 2000. Now, all of a sudden it went down to 0, and that warning message came up. So, I went in and checked my memory, and under Internal SD Card, it said 0.0GB free. I have NO idea how I lost 2GB of memory, and I have no idea how to get it back. I uninstalled some apps, deleted a lot of photos, cleared my Downloads folder, but I can still only ever get it up to around 50MB or below.

Can anyone explain what went wrong? Or how to get back the GBs that were lost? I'm really not very technical minded, and messing around with phone setting generally scares me, incase I break it even more! So if anyone has any clear advice that will help me out, I'd appreciate it!

Also, I'm not sure if this has anything to do with it or not, but since this memory thing started happening, I've had to charge my phone a lot more. Before, I'd only need to charge it once every 24-26 hours. Now, I need to charge it every 14-16 hours. I've tried optimizing the power by turning the brightness way down low, putting the screen timeout to 15 seconds, turning on power saving mode... but it doesn't seem to make a lot of difference. That mostly only buys me an hour or 2 of extra power.

Thanks.

I currently have 58 apps installed.
48 emails in googlemail, 43 with picture attachments.
I use the internet on here a LOT. I always leave wifi turned on, because I use it so much.

I'm not really sure what's going on, but you can try going to [Settings] > [Applications] > [Manage applications], press the Menu key and select ALL (sorry, I forgot the exact steps), scroll down, select [Internet].

See how much Data and Cache you have there.

You can clear the data and cache by tapping on the buttons that says [Clear data] and [Clear cache].

Alternatively, install MemoryUp from market and try using it to free up some space.

On The Samsung Galaxy S phones(i9000, i9000M,i9000L and probably all US variations) the Memory is divided up as follows:

RAM: 512 MB(some of which is reserved by the kernel and operating system)

Internal Phone storage: ~2 GB(main filesystem of the phone; contains the root directory and system folder)

Internal SD Card: ~6/14 GB depending on model (This is a place of additional storage that is mounted under sdcard in the filesystem)

External SD Card: Refers to specific type of externally mounted flash memory accessed from a directory inside the sdcard folder.

The Internal Phone storage which stores the phone filesystem and what is identified as the "Internal SD card" are actually seperately block mounted partitions on the phone's 8/16 GB internal SD card.

Most programs like to cache thumbnails and such on the internal sd card because of it's size, but browsers by default perfer to store on the internal phone storage for what i assume are performance reasons.

A factor reset would not touch the sdcard partitions only the filesystem, deleting anything that isn't in the /system/ folder and reseting settings. selecting format internal sd-card in the recovery menu would return all the lost memory by deleting all your data located there.

I'm really not sure exactly why you would be losing memory on your phone. If it helps: there is a hidden folder located in the DCIM folder called .thumbnails. this folder and it's contents are created by the media scanner that indexes media on your phone. You can see these hidden folders by enabling it in the "My Files" program by using the context menu button and selecting [More] >>> [Settings] >>> "Show hidden files". if your delete this file it may free up a lot of space and prompt the Media Scanner to re-scan the card.

You mentioned that your battery life is terrible lately. this is often the result of a program that likes to use your data/wi-fi connection. This is usually the biggest drain of battery since it requires a partial wake to keep your phone's cpu from stepping down the frequency as much when your phone is sleeping and the screen if off. Since you use your wifi so extensively perhaps you could check your wifi sleep settings. they are located in [Settings] >>> [Wireless and network] >>> [wi-fi Settings] press the menu button and bring up the [Advanced] menu and select "Wi-Fi sleep policy". There are 3 settings: "Never", "Never when plugged in", and "When screen turns off".

Having wi-fi turned on does not mean it is active. what it does mean is that it will have a wake-lock on your phone which may take some battery life to maintain your wi-fi connection. The biggest battery drain is once again when programs are actively using it. My guess is you installed a program that likes to constantly be connected to your network. some programs may even default to this behaviour when wi-fi is turned on.

On a side-note:
I really recommend you upgrade to 2.2 if you ever experience what is called wake-up lag. I find that wake-up lag is practically non-existent with it compared to 2.1(eclair)

I hope you find this all relevant and helpful.

If you want to resort to formatting the internal SD card partition the option is available in the recovery menu that is accessed by turning on the phone while holding home + volume up button. It's listed in there i think. At least is it on the recovery e3 menu, It might not be there in the e2 menu that is part of android 2.1 roms. The option is also listed where it shows your SD card and storage info that is located at [Settings] >>> [SD card and phone storage], Just use the "Format SD card" option. i would like to think there is some program storing data on your internal sd card. ES File Explorer has some built in tools for analyzing sd cards and number of files. and it's free

nah, All the important stuff like drivers needed for your phone to run are stored in your phone's internal storage, Since you use 2.1 i know that you do not have official support for running apps from internal sd-card, unless you use apps2sd you shouldn't have any problem with any of your installed programs. If you still haven't found the culprit behind your missing space then I would totally recommend formating your internal sd-card, I am kinda obsessive about things that should not be.
I imagine any loss by re-formatting your internal sd-card will be pretty trivial. I try to make sure all my music and stuff of value like roms are stored on my external sd-card.

still it's a damn shame if you couldn't find out why you were missing all that space so you knew where to look in the future.