Continous random loss of HD Space

[Arcueid]

Hi, I've been having a problem with my PC, for some reason it keeps eating space by itself, It's not a Virus nor any Spyware Adware, I was thinking maybe the Page File? But then again its suppose to give back space after you reboot, and it doesnt do that. What's wrong?

[caperjack]

You could have a program creating backups everytime you shut down the computer .

[Arcueid]

How would I check this?

[caperjack]

How would I check this?

Most programs that would do this use the file extension .BAK ,
go to start /search files and folders and type in *.BAK ,and search and see what it finds .
You could also search for *.tmp and see what showes up .

[Arcueid]

I tried this, and some files came up, most of which I knew. Except a couple I dont know how got there, but how is this related to the mass amount of space loss that just randomly keeps disappearing by itself

[caperjack]

iI dont know you tell me !LOL
When you look in mycomputer and right click on the hardrive ,what does it give for the size of you hardrive and space used and space remaining !

[jwenting]

Do you have Google desktop installed?
That will eat up harddisk space rapidly as it caches everything it recognises even somewhat (effectively doubling your storage requirements).

[Arcueid]

I do not have Google Desktop installed, I have 35.8 Gigs Used with 1.44 Gigs Left, I just had 2.1 gigs available not too long ago. I dont know whats eating all the space. As I stated, my guess is maybe the page file? Since whenever I open a large program such as the game Counter Strike, it kills 100's of megabytes of space. I was wondering if anyone has had this problem and knows how to fix it WITHOUT Reformatting or any of the such.

[DMR]

Page file (swap space) usage can largely depend on how much real RAM you have installed- what's the amount of physical RAM in your system?

Also: one possibly simple way to figure out what's eating your drive space is to open Windows Explorer and have it sort your files/folders by "Date Modified" or "Date Created". If you do that, do you see any files/folders which have experienced "unusual growth" after you notice the increased disk-space usage?

[Arcueid]

Page file (swap space) usage can largely depend on how much real RAM you have installed- what's the amount of physical RAM in your system?

Also: one possibly simple way to figure out what's eating your drive space is to open Windows Explorer and have it sort your files/folders by "Date Modified" or "Date Created". If you do that, do you see any files/folders which have experienced "unusual growth" after you notice the increased disk-space usage?

I have 256 RAM, I tried what you stated above, but didnt see any noticble results.

[zack_rage]

hi my friend,
try this 2 softwares that removes junk files

CCleaner (Crap Cleaner) is a freeware system optimisation tool. That removes unused and temporary files from your system - allowing it to run faster, more efficiently and giving you more hard disk space. The best part is that it's fast! (normally taking less that a second to run) and Free. :)

Cleans the following:

Internet Explorer Cache, History, Cookies, Index.dat.
Recycle Bin, Temporary files and Log files.
Recently opened URLs and files.
Third-party application temp files and recent file lists (MRUs).
Including: Media Player, eMule, Kazaa, Google Toolbar, Netscape, Office XP, Nero, Adobe Acrobat, WinRAR, WinAce, WinZip and more...
Advanced Registry scanner and cleaner to remove unused and old entries.
Including File Extensions, ActiveX Controls, ClassIDs, ProgIDs, Uninstallers, Shared DLLs, Fonts, Help Files, Application Paths, Icons, Invalid Shortcuts and more...
Backup for registry clean.
This software is completely Freeware and contains no Spyware or Adware.
What's New

v1.15.078 - [3rd November 2004]
- Added Custom Folder cleaning.
- Fixed Autocomplete History shutdown bug.
- Added new multi-language routines.
- Updated Firefox detection.
- Updated Opera cache cleaning.
- Fixed ActiveX scanning issue with some software.
- Updated Office 2003 cleaning.
- Updated Real Player cleaning.
- Added Quicktime cleaning.
- Added MS Management Console cleaning.
- Added Remote Desktop MRU cleaning.
- Added Recycle Bin cleaning on 95/NT.
- Reduced file sizes.
- Minor tweaks and fixes.

download it here small in size http://www.ccleaner.com/ccdownload.php

and this
Advanced Disk Cleaner is a program that will increase your free disk space and improve your computer's performance by finding and removing junk and temporary files.
It will search all your computer's hard disks for temporary files left behind by various applications and will present you a list of the junk files, thus allowing you to save a lot of disk space.

download it here
http://www.innovative-sol.com/cleaner/index.htm

this 2 softwares are free ok!!!
and post for the results (harddisk space) after you use this softwares
:mrgreen:

[caperjack]

Run Scandisk ,It will fix space errors !!!

[Catnip]

It could be a problem with the metafiles that report your free space, if you can't find the offending file, this is probably the case. There are issues with XP (actually NTFS) that can cause the free space to be misreported. I had the same issue at work on a few machines. Here is the Microsoft article with some things you can try to fix this issue.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;315688

[Arcueid]

Thanks guys ! I think I got it !

[caperjack]

Thanks guys ! I think I got it !

well you have to tell us what is was !:)

[Zachery]

Its time to get a new ahrddrive of get rid of files you dont need :)

[Catnip]

Or you can fix it, and save the money for tacos and PBR! :cheesy:

[db_york]

I've got the same problem (I think) and I really want to know how to fix it!

My hard disk is partitioned into two NTFS drives. Once I've started an internet connection the C: drive gradually appears to fill up. It happens even when explorer isn't running, faster when it IS running, and happens even though I'm not actually hitting any web pages. (Explorer is set to use 312Mb for temporary files but I shouldn't even be using that because I'm not actively surfing!).

After a restart I have the correct amount of disk space showing - about 5 Gb of a 10Gb partition.

[DMR]

Hi db_york,

First of all- welcome to TechTalk!

We ask that members not tag their questions on to a thread previously started by another member (regardless of how similar your problem might seem). Not only does it divert the focus of the thread away from the original poster's problem, but it also makes it less likely that you yourself will get the individual attention that you need.

Please start your own thread and post your question there. When you do, please try to give us as much specific info as possible regarding the problem (exact error messages, system specs, etc.).

For a full description of our posting guidelines and general rules of conduct, please see this page:

http://www.daniweb.com/techtalkforums/faq.php?faq=daniweb_faq#faq_rules

Thanks for understanding.

[antioed]

Of course not! You know it was just all those porn downloads coming through...

...little humor there, i couldn't resist.

I was going to recommend doing a search on the drive for *.* and sorting by size/date to see if there were any files growing in size...very easy way to find large files that are chomping up space, but instead i guess now i'm just bumping to bump bump.

[qweasd]

i have the same problem too. the only answer i could come up is this one: windows is freakin' stupid !!!

after i installed windows, with everything i had 2.21 GB free on c:

then i watched a few movies... restarted... (didn't install anything)... the next day i see i have only 1.82 GB free on c: !!

and no, it's not the swap file cos i set it to 512 MB right after it finished installing. it doesn't grow bigger except if i'm playing high-requirements games.

must KILL BILL !!!!!!