How to resolve SQLDiag issue

[nessty]

We have a Honeywell Experion 2003 Server whose sqldiag.txt grows very large and eats up all the space in the hard drive. In January of this year it grew to 170GB and we were unable to open it because it is always in use and too large. We deleted it then and referred the case to Honeywell. It is growing again and at 2GB right now. Does anyone know of this problem? What is causing it? And how to resolve it?The SQL Error logs also show Error 9002 Severity 17 State 6 and for waht its worth this server has shutdown (on its own) 4 times in the last 7 months.

 

[nessty]

Oh and I know that Severity 17 means "Indicates that the statement caused SQL Server to run out of resources (such as memory, locks, or disk space for the database) or to exceed some limit set by the system administrator."

 

[genomon]

Is there a need to keep a query trace running constantly? If not, turn it off; could save lots of overhead.

 

[genomon]

Forgot - you can also config the sqldiag utility.
Here is what MS has to say:

The sqldiag utility gathers and stores diagnostic information and the contents of the query history trace (if running.) The output file includes error logs, output from sp_configure and additional version information. If the query history trace was running when the utility was invoked, the trace file will contain the last 100 SQL events and exceptions. sqldiag is intended to expedite and simplify information gathering by Microsoft Product Support Services.
Syntax

sqldiag
[-?] |
[-I instance_name]
[ [-U login_ID] [-P password] | [-E] ]
[-O output_file]
[-X] [-M] [-C]
Arguments

-?

Displays usage information.

-I instance_name

Specifies the instance of Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2000 on the local server on which to connect. Omit the -I option to connect to the default instance on the local server.

-U login_ID

Is the user login ID. Login IDs are case-sensitive.

-P password

Is the password for the specified login_ID. If the -P option is specified at the end of the command prompt specifying password, sqldiag uses the default without password of NULL. Passwords are case-sensitive.

Security Note NULL passwords are not recommended.

-E

Uses a trusted connection instead of requesting a password.

-O output_file

Redirects sqldiag output to the file named output_file. If the -O option is not specified, the output file name defaults to sqldiag.txt. In this case, the trace file names remain unchanged as blackbox.trc and blackbox_01.trc.

If the -O option is specified, sqldiag renames trace files blackbox.trc and blackbox_01.trc based on the name used for output_file (for example, if output_file is specified as MyDiagnostics.txt, the trace files will be renamed to MyDiagnostics.trc and MyDiagnostics_01.trc respectively).

Use of the -O option enables users to store several sqldiag outputs in the same directory.

-X

Excludes error logs.

-M

Performs DBCC stackdump.

-C

Retrieves cluster information.