MAJOR PROBLEM...(please read)

I have Windows XP. This morning, when I came to start up my computer, I checked how much space I had left on my hard drive. I had 699MB (I know this isn't alot, but I have another hard drive). Now, when I boot up my computer, I have 168MB of free space. I didn't do ANYTHING between this morning and this afternoon (I was out doing last minute X-Mas shopping). I don't think this was a hacker, because my computer is protected by BlackICE, McAfee firewall, and a cable/dsl router hardware firewalll. If anyone has any information regarding this problem, please post back!

Thanks A Lot!!!

-Mark

 

DO a search on your drive for any files that were created in the last 24 hours and look for any that look out of the ordinary or are extrordinarily large. It sounds like the data protection feature that is creating recovery points and not overwriting them. I thought XP had some built in Firewall protection by default.

 

Your computer might be creating a backup. I have "lost" free space on my computer as well. XP creates "restore points" which is a good idea. My keyboard wasn't working properly and I have already used that feature and think it was a good idea to add that to the operating system. But I think that must use some HD space.

I know that it gives you the option of setting a specific time when it will create a backup, so for example you can set it for once a week instead of every day or so; that might save space.

Also, I think you might be able to set a duration of how long to keep recovery points.

 

Thanks for posting back . I did a search, and nothing came back unusual. As far as the "built in" firewall, I don't think that is very good. That is my opinion though. I just checked my free space, and now it is up to 448MB. Again, I havn't modified anything much on the C drive.

Please post back with any ideas.

Thanks

 

use this to cleanup http://www.piersontech.com/07-CleanHardDrive.htm
that will regain alot of space if you have not done it lately

also scan disk and defrag

 

It might be your paging file that is ballooning up and eating resources.

You say you have another hard drive. Move the paging file off the c: to the other hard drive, this will accomplish a couple of things. One, it will free up more space on the c: drive. Two, it will give a slight speed increase to the system (not sure how much an increase, that really depends on several factors, like drive speed, interface speed, interface type..etc)