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Something is eating my harddrive.

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I don't know what it is.

I'm running Vista SP1 by the way.

Just yesterday I noticed my Hard drive space read 514 GB free of 596 GB.

This seemed odd, considering all I've got is World of Warcraft and World in Conflict installed, and all the other programs and features combined could hardly add up to more than 30 GB. So I resolved to check and see if my memory moved.

Today it did. I woke up and my memory had dropped from 514 to 512.

2 whole GBs had vanished.

I've run Spybot Search and Destroy, AdAware, and AVG Anti-Virus and they didn't come up with anything drastic. Just dumb tracking cookies.

I deleted all my temporary internet files, but that only gave me 1GB back.

This is compounded even more by the fact that I go to completely innocent websites, and nowhere would I pick up a deadly virus that would eat my memory. Much less so because I run FireFox with noscript.

This can't be simple updates for programs. What's going on?

Message edited by ThaMahstah on 10-07-2008 at 10:27:27 PM

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my 'windows' directory alone is 25 gig, LOL. Add in program files, swap files, hibernate files, etc and so on and I'm really not surprised to see 514 out of 596. That;s not saying there isn't something going on here but on the face of it I can't say it looks alarming.

As to losing 2 gig overnight, hmmm, if it keeps happening then yea, something is amiss, but if over the next week or so it stays somewhat stable then you might write it off as a red herring - watch it and see would be my advice

and if the current used up space seems too much to you then maybe get an explorer view of your c drive and turn on 'viewing system and hidden files' so you can see those swap files and whatnot and add them up.

edit: actually my hiberfil and page files together are 10 gig

Message edited by notherdude on 10-07-2008 at 11:24:49 PM

------------------------------ tehhardpro wrote :

notherdude u have an old hand. Having an old hand doesnt make sence. Cuz its old. get a new one.. seems like ur hand doesnt understand what it is writing. So placve it in ur rig instead of vista human orgnoids will amke more sense
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It's now down to 509 GB. This only about two hours after I first posted this thread, by the way.

Would you call that amiss? Someone suggested it's just system restore, but somehow I don't think so.

I just don't see how I could get a virus. As I said, not only do I only go on innocent websites, but I'm running firefox with noscript!

I'm defragging my harddrive as we speak; seeing as if that'll fix the problem.

Message edited by ThaMahstah on 10-07-2008 at 11:47:58 PM

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Yeah, my C:\Windows\ directory is ~18gb, so it's not that hard to be using 80gbs of space.

I did have a problem like this once where I had a virus that just kept duplicating itself. My normal virus scanner didn't find it, so I tried several different ones in safe mode until one finally found it. Keep track of the free space over the next couple of days.

EDIT: Yeah, you posted like 20 seconds before me, so my suggestion of keep track of free space is kinda irrelevant now. Try using a different scanner.

Message quoted 1 times
Message edited by br3nd064 on 10-07-2008 at 11:45:22 PM

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br3nd064 wrote :

EDIT: Yeah, you posted like 20 seconds before me, so my suggestion of keep track of free space is kinda irrelevant now. Try using a different scanner.

Like what?

Could the sudden decrease in space have something to do with defragging my harddrive? It just boggles my mind how I could get a virus.

That's odd. Even though I told "Internet Options" to delete all history, cookies, passwords and the like, it appears to have made no difference in Firefox. Everything is still there.

Message edited by ThaMahstah on 10-07-2008 at 11:53:36 PM

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Both avast and avira are god free scanners. I'd try them in safe mode just to be more thorough. Defragging doesn't add or remove any files, it just organizes them so the hard drive can find them quicker.

Message edited by br3nd064 on 10-07-2008 at 11:52:51 PM

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508 GB now.

Where can I download those scanners? Do I download them and then start in safe mode and scan? What does safe mode do that'd make a difference?

Message edited by ThaMahstah on 10-09-2008 at 04:17:22 AM

Reply to ThaMahstah

Avast is here: http://avast.com/eng/download-avast-home.html

Avira is here: http://free-av.com/en/download/1/a [...] virus.html

It doesn't in which mode you install them, only that you scan them in safe mode. Safe mode turns off a lot of services and processes that normal windows does not. It only allows a certain list of windows processes to run, so if the virus executes on boot-up, it won't be able to start in safe-mode.

Reply to br3nd064

Just a question, if in Security Center I get a note under Firewall that says:

Note: Two or more firewalls running at the same time can conflict with each other.

Does that mean I have two or more firewalls running at the same time?

Reply to ThaMahstah

Are you using a 3rd-party firewall? Windows vista has it's own firewall, but if you decide to install your own, you should turn of the windows one to reduce conflicts.

Reply to br3nd064

I do Turn off Windows Firewall, but instead of saying it's okay another one is running, I get warnings that say I have no firewall running at all.

By the way, I called a computer expert and he said it's probably just system restore. That makes four people who've said it's probably that.

Since the notion that I got a deadly virus is very, very unlikely, I think I'll just sit tight for now. If it drops down into the 300s I'll know something is up but for now I think I'll just wait.

Message edited by ThaMahstah on 10-08-2008 at 05:50:44 AM

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Sounds good. Sorry for making you all worried about possibly getting a virus.

Reply to br3nd064

Well I turned off system restore and got 60GB of space back.

Guess that's that.

Message edited by ThaMahstah on 10-09-2008 at 04:17:11 AM

Reply to ThaMahstah

You can adjust how much space system restore is allowed to use. Having at least a few restore points can come in very handy - saved my installs on more than a few occasions - and hard drive space is cheap.

Wow, I never paid attention to it. I didn't know system restore could use that much space.

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