Dear God, what the hell happened?!?!

[Zitech_Industries]

This morning, I booted up my computer, and got a message that my hard drive was. "What the hell?!?" So, I go to check, and it says I have 223mb left, well last night I had 13GB. What the hell happened?!?!

[Coolin]

Originally posted by Zitech_Industries
got a message that my hard drive was "What the hell?!?" Please be more descriptive, I don't understand how your hard drive can me what the helled.

[webman]

never seen that message

[Hobbes]

cache?
windows swap file/virtual memory?
spawning virus?
install 12 gigs of stuff in the past 24hrs? ;)

[Zitech_Industries]

I meant to say tht I got an alert that said my hard drive was full. But I had 13Gb left last night! What happened?

[Edited by Zitech_Industries on 02-03-2001 at 09:20 PM]

[Mandrake]

Are you signed up to Juno? hehe... :)

[Hobbes]

LOL! Yeah, any of those ad-based services can take up a gazillion bytes in mere seconds...

[Zitech_Industries]

Now it looks like it's fluctuating........ First it says I have no space, then I got 447mb, then I got 19kb. What the hell is happening? If it is a virus, what kind of software would do the best job of taking it out? And how do I counter act it after it is gone?

[Hobbes]

Did you check your virtual memory? What's it set to?

Suggestions:

1) Virus Check
2) Delete temp and unnecessary files, empty cache, empty recycle bin
3) Scan Disk
4) Defrag
5) Keep asking us :)

[Coolin]

A swap file can flucuate a lot when opening many programs. But it's probably a virus or something, because the swap file can't increase by 13gig.

[Mandrake]

Sounds like a virus to me. :(

[LeX]

me three.

[Zitech_Industries]

Happily, it seems that if it is a virus, it's not affecting anything else but screwing with my hard drive. But really, what kind of sick jackass gets off on messing up what someone worked really hard for? Whats the best software to get rid of this thing?

[Hobbes]

The swapfile was a large guess...only that it screws with my sisters computer :( taking over half of her hard drive sometime..Anyway.

I recommend InnoculateIT:
http://antivirus.ca.com/

Free, has real time protection (THAT'S good, once someone put a floppy disk with a virus on it in my computer and tried to execute the infected file and this virus program caught it before it could do anything), and updates via the web. I think it's the best one I've found yet.

[keith]

try this, go to 'start' -> 'search' -> 'files or folders'

then do a search for '*.TMP, *~' [without the quotes, obviously]

then delete them all. i have that problem. my computer doesn't seem to want to delete it's temp files. i successfuly rid my pc of 750 megs of unnecesary temp files. hope that helps.

[Coolin]

Also search for:
*.bak
*.00*
*.---

[Koolguy]

Also you might want to try System Mechanic from http://www.iolo.com/ it has freed up about 2GB for me.

[Coolin]

Woah, you guys don't know how to take care of your systems do you? For me, clearing out over 1 meg of stuff is uncommon by using those programs.

[webman]

y not reformat. i just did it to my system cause it wwas slow and it was fun.

[Nick]

Go to Programs>Accesories>System Tools>Disk Cleanup. I usually delete 40MBs/week with that, plus I use CleanPC which can delete 4MBs/day of ----. Plust run the *.TMP search. I usually get back at least 50MBs/week.

[webman]

try going into the cabs file there should be a setup.exe and that will reinstall windows without loosing any data and that might fix it.

[Koolguy]

Also check out your installed programs, one could be messing up your disk.

[Zitech_Industries]

The problem has been fixed! Turns out, it was all just temp files. Only, I don't know what kind they were. I had five or six that looked like this $45.TMP(The numbers were different) that took up like a gig and a half each. What were they?

[LeX]

geez!! a single temp file - half a GB?! amazing............ :eek:

[Zitech_Industries]

Yeah, and the thing is, I don't even know where i picked them up. And in ONE night......seems like foul play to me....

[keith]

damn. am i good or what??

[Nick]

Originally posted by keith
damn. am i good or what??

good? no. it's what, definitely what.

[Rodie]

Do you have GoBack or any software designed to recover stuff from your hard drive? The 1.5 GB files could possibly be something like that I guess.

[keith]

yes, nick. that was a statement in the form of a question. i am good, and you know it. i provided the correct solution, so i don't know where you have any room to make that kinda statement. jealousy maybe... but no facts.

i hear the leading cause of jealousy among men is impotence. it's ok nick, nothing to be [too] ashamed of.

besides disk cleanup sucks. all it does is redirect you to the add/remove programs folder. totally useless.

[Edited by keith on 02-06-2001 at 12:17 AM]

[LeX]

I thought disk cleaners deletes all your cache and temp files.

[Mandrake]

Windows Millenium's Disk Cleanup gives you the option of several things... I can't remember them all, but two of them are deleting internet temp files (which will free up most of your space) and deleting temp files.

[keith]

Originally posted by LeX
I thought disk cleaners deletes all your cache and temp files.

actually, a few weeks back, i had this same problem. had about 2kb left on my c [windows] drive. no matter how many times i ran disk cleanup, all it did was check the recycle bin, the temp internet files, and then open the add/remove program options.

then i did a search for *.TMP, etc, like i mentioned earlier. these are, more often than not, local temporary files, like if you were working on an image in photoshop or something. it saves a temp file while you work, sometimes multiple temp files, so yu can hit undo if you do something you don't want to the file, and it can recover what was previously saved.

works the same with text documents, anything you have the ability to hit "undo". just for some reason, my computer didn't seem to want to delete them once i closed the program. problem solved though