Losing Hard drive space

[Marcus---]

This is really weird, the other day i had over 20 gb left on my hard drive,

since then im down to 53 mb yet the only thing ive downloaded is one film and an itunes update, i cant understand whats using all the space? ive deleted all norton 360 backups etc but my space keeps dissapearing...

Ive deleted all my recycle bin, removed 90% of movies music that was on my laptop as well as pictures, its got 300 gb,

Only programs i run are:

Google chrome
Limewire-could be a cause but i havnt used it in months
utorrent
I tunes
Norton 360
Word/powerpoint etc

Anyone know what i can do? or where my space keeps going?

 

[Gavin.]

Could be your hard drive giving up the ghost?

Try this http://windirstat.info/ it will show you where the huge files are on your system

Just don't go deleting system32 folder or system files

 

[Marcus---]

Cheers for that mate, looks really helpful! Cant think it would be the hard drive giving up though, its only just over a year old hp so better not be!

 

[Marcus---]

It found 53 gb on the c: drive....

Wheres my other 250gb!?

edit: 226 gb of unknown!?

 

[Gavin.]

go into control panel/administrative tools open computer management then click storage and disk management and post what it says i there.

It should be something like this:

or screen print it and post the pic if your unsure what it all means

 

[Marcus---]

Can you go through onto the c: to see whats being used, i double clicked but it did nothing?
heres the other one as well...

 

[SC03OTT]

Give this a try. Post six is where it helped me from.

http://www.cliosport.net/forum/showthread.php?t=446872

 

[Gavin.]

I would say the 229.6GB of <unknown> is what is causing your problem

According to the legend on the left its a .M4A file which is an audio file for iTunes

EDIT: Just delete the unknown mate, if you don't reply i will just assume i fucked your pc

 

[Marcus---]

haha i dont know whether to risk it or not! maybe if i back up all my music then try, this has epic fail written all over it...

 

[Gavin.]

well according to that its a file/folder directly in drive c:\

go have a look and post a shot up again

unless you really do have 229GB of iTunes music, do you get all your music from iTunes or do you have mp3's?

 

[adam1942]

whats the filename? an .m4a is not a critical windows file so it wont trash your pc..

 

[Marcus---]

Cant see how it can be itunes as all my music is about 6gb and is included in my c: drive under music as ive just checked, really strange, cant really be a virus could it?

just tried to delete it and it cant be deleted?

 

[Gavin.]

doubt full with is being an m4a file, i would just delete it mate. 229GB in one file is f'ing huge, if all you mp3's are safe in /music it wont harm any of those if you delete it

 

[Marcus---]

doubt full with is being an m4a file, i would just delete it mate.

I cant when i click on the unknown file all the options are taken away to delete etc..

 

[wozzaa]

That windows folder looks a few gigs too large too.

Go into it and look for the temp folder. May find there is a few gigs worth of stuff left over there. It is only there for temporary files during installs etc. Sometimes though, they just don't get deleted. So worth manually checking every so often.

 

[Gavin.]

my windows7 folder is 15.1GB, ill have a search on the m4a thing

will windirstat not let you delete it either?

 

[Marcus---]

since doing the original screenshot and having to restart my computer due to uninstalling cs3 photoshop the unknown file has filled again now up to 231.2gb from 229.6gb

i dont understand what the f**k its doing!!!! this is frustrating

i think m4a isnt related, when i click on the thumbnail its just in the very bottom right corner and is just the 6gb of music, dont know why its the same colour as the unknown file though

 

[Gavin.]

i would do a virus scan just for the hell of it mate, you never know

 

[wozzaa]

Boot into safe mode and try deleting it that way.

I just thought the windows folder looked slightly large at over 18GB on that screen shot you posted 15GB is about normal though.

Might also be worth posting what processes are running for us.

 

[Marcus---]

just did a google search and it seems to be a problem with a virus that attacks norton AV, evertime you turn off the computer it somehow takes up more space on the hard drie, had it with norton now going to download another anti-virus, any free recommendations?

 

[Gavin.]

Boot into safe mode and try deleting it that way.

Good idea, F8 on boot

 

[Gavin.]

just did a google search and it seems to be a problem with a virus that attacks norton AV, evertime you turn off the computer it somehow takes up more space on the hard drie, had it with norton now going to download another anti-virus, any free recommendations?

avast mate, free and better than norton anyway

 

[Marcus---]

Here are the processes..


Extension of page..

 

[Marcus---]

After a few hours pissing around with it i eventually found what it was!!

Automatic system recovery points...oh dear Vista!!

Turned it off and got my 230gb back!

Cheers for all the help, hopefully this will help anyone with similar issues in the future...

 

[Gavin.]

lolz is that all it was in the end! damn vista, get 7 dude, wipes the floor with vista