I am working on a development server with a bare-bones installation of SharePoint 12.0.0.4518 (WSS 3.0 RTM). Knowing very little about SharePoint development, we installed the environment atop a SQL Server Express 2005 database. Now I am running into that 4GB limit. The site is just a simple installation that I've been testing a custom web part on; apparently, in removing and reinstalling the web part, the cached copies have completely filled up the database. It is so full, in fact, that I can't even delete content without throwing an error message, so my site has become unusable.
My question is: how do I proceed? I was going to split the content database but that's not possible in its current state. Upgrading to SQL Server is not an option for us. I had thought of going to WID; however, I'm not sure how to do anything at all with this database since everything I try throws an error related to the database being full (HRESULT: 0x80004004 (E_ABORT)). I just don't know how to proceed. Thanks for any help!
Try using a VM with a full installation of SQL Server. Restore the content database to that and fix it. Take the fixed and smaller database and restore back to production.
I would first try removing the web part (and solution) using STSADM commands rather than the web interface.
If that fails - in the interest of gaining some space back - how about disabling (and therefore emptying) the recycle bin? That might get you enough space back that you can do some clean up work. (This of course means that you lose your entire recycle bin history - hopefully on your dev server that isn't an issue.)
Also - if you can get it fixed, definitely switch to WID, there is no size limit like with SQL Express.