[Bumble7]

Hi everyone,

I hope I haven't missed an answer to this question, I've been trying to find the problem all day and my brain has turned to cotton wool, so I'm hoping some one may be able to tell me what to next.

My OS drive is 80gbs but is currently down to 7gbs. I have very few files stored on the OS drive, so I couldn't understand what was taking up all the space. Below are the details of my laptop (with portable hard drive attached).

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Tech Support Guy System Info Utility version 1.0.0.2
OS Version: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium, Service Pack 1, 64 bit
Processor: Genuine Intel(R) CPU U7300 @ 1.30GHz, Intel64 Family 6 Model 23 Stepping 10
Processor Count: 2
RAM: 4061 Mb
Graphics Card: Mobile Intel(R) 4 Series Express Chipset Family, 1806 Mb
Hard Drives: C: Total - 76308 MB, Free - 7679 MB; D: Total - 211935 MB, Free - 109262 MB; F: Total - 953197 MB, Free - 174504 MB;
Motherboard: ASUSTeK Computer Inc., UL30A
Antivirus: avast! Antivirus, Updated and Enabled

******

After looking as far as my very limited knowledge would take me for the culprit I downloaded a programme called Windirstat.

It tells me that Windows is taking up 42.1 gbs and of that temp is taking up 21.1 gb. I think the problem may be in there somewhere but I haven't a clue what is deletable and what isn't, how do I find out what is safe to bin?

[managed]

Run Disk Cleanup :- http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/w...g-Disk-Cleanup

Post back with how much space is free on the drive now.

[Bumble7]

I've run disc clean up and it hasn't made any difference, I've also defragged and no change with that either, thanks for the reply though.

[Bumble7]

Update - I have dug deeper into the Temp file and it is full of hundreds of etilqs files. After a search on the internet I've found various comments that both firefox and WD smartware put them on your computer as "shadows" to save using the original data.

Am I safe to remove these files or will they corrupt files I use?

[managed]

Ok try Disk Cleanup again only this time click the More Options tab and then click the lowest Clean Up button. That will delete all but the latest System Restore point and free up some HDD space.

I'm not sure about deleting those etilqs files, I did see a tip online which said move the files to a different folder, wait a few days and if things are working normally delete them. Maybe you could try that.

[Bumble7]

Update - I did the disc clean up as you suggested and it freed up a couple of gb, I'm now at 10.5gb.

When I dug deep into the windirstat report and went to windows, it seemed that these files might be generated by avast. I've attached pics.

I unistalled avast and installed it again but the files are still there. I emailed avast but got a rather unhelpful response. I felt if he didn't know what the files were then it was a bit dodgy deleting them.

Response from Avast "this report in not clear for me. i don't know what that fie (etilqs...) is.
However you can delete temporary files."

[Bumble7]

Update - I've now moved around 3gb of the files onto the data drive, laptop was slower than normal to load when I rebooted but so far everything is working as normal. I'll leave them like that for a day or two, and if things all still work I'll delete them and tackle the rest.

[managed]

Good idea to move them, I hope you can delete them all soon.

You can usually delete anything in that Temp folder but there's no harm in being careful.