Hard drive filling up, unknown reason

[olddognewtrks]

Hi all. Long time BITOG member and poster, but first time here. My problem...
I have a 2003 vintage Dell 4600, 40 Gig Hard drive, Intel, Pentium (R) 4 CPU 2.40 GHz, 2.39 GHz, 2.25 GB RAM. I'm running Windows XP (home) Version 2002, Service Pack 3. Using Internet Explorer 8. Automatic updates enabled.
My problem: Until about a year ago, I had about 50% of my hard drive open/unused. I had an "episode", where my screen saver picture, and all but two of my icons vanished, leaving a default Dell screen picture, and said two icons (recycle and internet, I believe).
When I got it sorted out (found my pictures and icons in hiding somewhere) I had an extra 10-15% in my hard drive. This has continued slowly, to the point were I now have only 10% of my hard drive open, and my computer is starting to act wonky. I regularly run disk cleanup, defrag, and Norton. I have no idea what all this extra stuff is, and I do not use or need my computer for anything but e-mail and internet. Is it Updates run amok? Has my computer been hijacked? What do I need to do to fix this? A new PC is not an option, as the economy has hit me badly. All help gratefully accepted.

 

[Quest]

download CCleaner(formerly known as krrap cleaner), install and run it.

It will help reclaim some disk space esp. those related to Windump or similar.

As for why? If you have no firewall/router between your PC and your ISP (comcast, verizon, etc.), you are completely vulnerable to attacks and machine being hijacked for other illegal uses.

I would seriously consider downloading a freebie AV solution (Avast!), undo your Norton and then run it.Also consider running Malwarebytes and see if your PC is in doo-doodle.

Q.

 

[FusilliJerry82]

Do you happen to have a ZoneAlarm program on it?

 

[OVERKILL]

Also, run a chkdsk:

start -> run -> cmd

In the command prompt that opens: chkdsk /f

Hit Y to both prompts.

Reboot. Let it run.

 

[nfs480]

If you have system restore enabled you might have months or even year's worth of restore points, look into clearing those out and you might be able to free up a significant amount of space.

 

[tmorris1]

Originally Posted By: nfs480
If you have system restore enabled you might have months or even year's worth of restore points, look into clearing those out and you might be able to free up a significant amount of space.

Those will only use up to 20% of your drive at the max, I believe. It will just keep deleting the oldest restore points when it hits the programmed threshold.

 

[ToyotaNSaturn]

In addition to Deleting all system restore points and C-Cleaner, let's delete old Windows Updates that are taking up space...

Go to the C:\Windows folder. Click on the Tools Menu > Folder Options, Show hidden files and folders.

You'll see a slew of $xxxxx$ that are in blue (compressed). These can safely be deleted as they are a way for the system to back-out of Windows Updates. But you must never delete the $hfmig$ folder. Also, I suggest keeping the IE7 and IE8 folders in blue in case they need to be reinstalled for whatever reason.

After all that, defrag the hard disk. I suggest the Defraggler utility, easily installable from the www.ninite.com web site.

 

[The_Jeff]

You might want to get a utility like directory tree (not exact name) that shows what folders (and subfolders) hold all your stuff.

You can reinstall windows through the i386 folder that's hiding somewhere in your windows folder. Then you'll get a brand new folder, usually windows.0 and you can nuke the old one.

 

[greenaccord02]

FileMonger is good for this. Google it. It gives a graphical representation of what files and folders are holding the most stuff. Very helpful for getting a quick idea of where your space is going.

 

[CivicFan]

Originally Posted By: greenaccord02
FileMonger is good for this. Google it. It gives a graphical representation of what files and folders are holding the most stuff. Very helpful for getting a quick idea of where your space is going.


I use this portable app for that:

http://portableapps.com/apps/utilities/windirstat_portable

 

[olddognewtrks]

Thanks everyone. I will be checking out your various remedies in the next few days (crazy schedule), and I'll let you know how it went. Until then.....

 

[Donald]

Keep in mind that the directories that might be causing you trouble could be access protected. You cannot find those. In my case I had about 40GB of restore points and I had to use the backup program to delete them. Could not use Windows commands.

I ran a DEFRAG just to get a list of files still fragmented. And there in the list were hundreds and hundreds of restore points. I Googled the subdirectory name and found out the problem and how to fix it.

 

[widman]

All good suggestions. Often on Windows machines (still have a dozen) I put it in safe mode, turn off system restore, run ccleaner, jk defrag (think that's what it is, I'm on my mac), Windows new spyware/whatever.
then restart a nice clean machine. and reset the system restore.