[zarya]

Hi everyone! Here's the problem.

My boyfriend just bought a brand new computer a few weeks ago. It has Windows Vista on it. The hard drive is 320gig.

Problem: the hard drive appears full for absolutely no reason. Like, "there's only 2 mb left" full!!! While looking at all the folders, I can only account for like 60gig of things. There is no way what's filling it up is his stuff.

Here's what I did up to now :
- Free up disk space - the obvious, but it only had bits smaller than 20mb to free up.
- Delete all past shadow saves / restore points.
- Run a disk check at the next reboot.

Doing that, I've managed to recover some 30gig, but a few hours later, they were gone again.

The computer is terribly slow (understandably) when it says the hard drive is full! It won't let me him download anything either.

What could cause this?

Thank you so much!!

[zarya]

Here are some other details about the problem :

I've done a detailed anti-virus scan that turned up nothing.

I've googled the problem and none of the proposed solution worked.

When I was able to free up some 30gig, he browsed for a while with Firefox and that's when that space got reclaimed/filled up in a mere hour or so.

Could this be some kind of hardware problem?

[Elvandil]

It doesn't sound like hardware.

Unhide hidden files and folders in Folder Options and then examine the drive with one of these space analyzers. See what area is taking up so much space and find out what is in there.

Disk Pie
TreeSize
Xinorbis
AssessTree
Directory Size Calculator

Definitely scan for bad guys. Anti-virus will miss over 90% of infections, so you really need to scan for other types of malware, too, preferably with more than one scanner since they use different databases are are not so all-encompassing as AV.

Free anti-malware scanners:

A-Squared
PrevX CSI Free Version
Spybot S&D
RunScanner
Ad-Aware 2007
SuperAntiSpyware
Spyware Eliminator
Emco Malware Destroyer
Spyware Doctor
Arovax Anti-spyware
Trend-Micro Rootkit Buster
F-Secure Blacklight
Bootzilla (Bootable anti-malware CD with many other tools.)

List of freeware security software

Check your startup items, too:

Startup Control Panel
MZ Startup Manager
Startup Control Panel (Exe version for Vista)
Emsa Startup Manager
EM Startup Manager
WheresJames Startup Manager

Startup Programs Reference

If you have problems even using the scanners because the space disappears so fast, try Safe Mode. It's possible the culprit won't load, or try from a boot CD.

UBCD4Win

[Rich-M]

Is this a branded pc? Does it have a Recovery Partition as Most do? Can you see it or is there a hidden partition? Please tell us the make and model and hardware, it is almost impossible to help you without knowing that.