Hard Drive Suddenly Full

[med703]

Hello all,

Computer: HP 8765C
OS:  Windows ME

I have a 42 GB hard drive that was approximately half full.  A few days ago, I suddenly lost the remaining 20 GB of drive space.  I ran Virus Scan and a few trojans popped up and were cleaned and deleted or quarantined.  But I don't think these were the cause of such a drastic loss of memory.  Around the same time this problem began, I installed the updated version of McAfee's Personal Firewall product. . . not sure if that has anything to do with it either.

Anyway, after uninstalling of the Firewall product and removing some older programs, I cleared 2 GB of drive space only to have that disappear after a day or two.  I deleted more old software. . . 2 GB free again and it seems to be slowly disappearing, too.  I can not do a system restore because all my restore points have magically disappeared after a failed attempt to restore with insufficient hard drive space (!?).  I've done a disk cleanup, defrag, tried to find some enormous files/folders on the disk -- but nothing looks out of the ordinary.  I know there's 20 GB free on that disk. . . and there's only so much software I can delete.  Any ideas on what is going on here -- all suggestions are welcome.

Thanks so much!

[dl65]

med703......Have you tried deleting your cookies and all temp internet files? It's possible for some self replicating viruses to attach themselves to cookies and eat away at your hard drive ......what kind of anti virus are you using.......Perhap you should try an on line virus scan .
What scanning utilities are you using .....Because if this just started it may well be a nasty pest or even worse.

let us know
dl65  

[med703]

Thanks for the suggestions. . .

I deleted all my cookies and temporary internet files but nothing changed except about 10MB space gained from deleting those files.  

I am using McAfee VirusScan which is updated almost daily and is "always on" -- scanning all incoming and outgoing mail, etc..  I ran the most comprehensive scan last night and nothing came up.  As far as scanning utilities go, I am afraid I'm not quite sure what you mean. . .

Can anyone descibe the symptoms of a hard drive that is dying?  Does this fit within the possible parameters or am I most likely dealing with a virus?

[merlin_2]

disable system restore...hogger?download advanced system optimizer...this should clean out old reg files etc..

[med703]

Merlin_2. . .

I dowloaded Advanced System Optimizer and ran all the pertinent utilities, but nothing has changed as far as solving my missing 20 GB of disc space.  I did discover something interesting, though:  When I go into MyComputer/Properties/Performance/FileSystem to disable System Restore -- it was already disabled.  It is possible that I did this myself a long time ago and did not turn it back on.  What is interesting is that every time I try to turn System Restore back on, it is turned off when I go back to look at the 'tick box'.  Bizarre. . .

What is hogger?

[Raptor]

A hogger is a program that uses a lot of resources.

Can you not format and start with a fresh lane?

[easyrider66]

Hi,

  Have a look at this program, it may show you where your free space has gone.

http://www.win.tue.nl/sequoiaview/

Regards.

[med703]

Bingo!  Thanks EasyRider66!  What a fantastic program Sequoia View is. . . very ingenious!  I have an enormous block of files that look like this:

C:\_RESTORE\TEMP\A0017211.CPY

Can anyone tell me how to get rid of them?  Is it simply a matter of deleting them?  And how do I prevent this from happening again?

[easyrider66]

Hi Med703,

  Glad the program helped, but I'm afraid I will have to leave the diagnostic/cure to someone more experienced than myself.

Regards.

[merlin_2]

C:\_RESTORE\TEMP\A0017211.CPY   there is no such file on my winme?maybe you should scan for trojans>http://vil.nai.com/vil/stinger/   and you may scan for viruses but unless you disable system restore<its not needed> the viruses/worms/trojans will reappear due to system restore?

[med703]

Merlin_2,

I couldn't find the files either using the standard ME search function -- Windows keeps them in a hidden folder.  Maybe you don't have any of these files but when I used SequioaView, it instantly showed me a huge chunk of hard disk space that was populated with almost 9,000 (!) files that followed the C:\_RESTORE\TEMP\A0017211.CPY format.  After reading in another forum about other people who experienced the same exact problem, I simply deleted all those files and reclaimed all the missing hard drive space.  

The strange thing is that my System Restore was turned off a long time ago when I was cleaning out a virus and I just forgot to turn it back on.  So I'm not exactly sure how these files piled up so quickly.  Maybe it didn't happen overnight, but was a steady pileup over some months.  It certainly seemed like overnight, though.  But judging from what I've been reading, all signs point to System Restore being the culprit and not a virus.  

Anyway,  thanks for all the suggestions and interest.  Problem solved -- for now, at least!