Hard-drive is running out of space?

Question

I have a fairly old computer, bought it in late 2005... it has a 75 GB hard drive and has been trucking along pretty decently for many years. I have a 200 GB external hard-drive that I keep most of my stuff on, but any programs I have and music is kept on my C drive. I have checked, and my music is about 25 gigs and "windows files" is about another 17 gigs. There are a few gigs worth of other things here and there, but not enough to total to the 75 limit. A few months ago, I started getting messages that my hard drive was at capacity and that I needed to delete stuff to keep windows running efficiently. So, I deleted some stuff, kept a few gigs free and moved on. Eventually it would tell me it was full again, and I would delete a few more things. It's gotten to the point now that all I have is word , excel, media monkey and VLC on my computer, and my music. Just last night I removed a bunch of files and left about 3 gigs of free space. This morning it was back to about 175 MB of free space, with the wonderful message flashing at me again. I run windows XP, not vista. I have cleared my temporary files, compressed old files, deleted my browser cache, and yes, even emptied my recycle bin to try and conserve space, but it seems to fill back up again with something that I can't find. I've run virus checks and come up empty. 

Is there something that I am forgetting to delete, somewhere that I have missed checking? I'm pretty sure I've gone over everything with a fine toothed comb. Or do hard-drives just start to lose capacity over time? 

I'd like to keep this computer running until boxing day, get a new one on sale, but it seems that it might not last that long at the rate it's going. 

Hope someone can provide some advice, thanks in advance.

? · Accepted Answer

Any odd behavior is typically a sign of viruses. No names come to mind, but there are some viruses that happen to 'waste' hard drive space in various ways, either as a side effect or as their primary function.

If your scanner doesn't reveal any virus, then it might be a *rootkit*, a virus designed to hide itself by hijacking the OS. You'll have to use a bootable rescue disc to get rid of these, like one offered by Kaspersky. Download it on a clean computer, burn it to CD, and use it to boot your machine.
http://rescuedisk.kaspersky-labs.com/rescuedisk/updatable/

Once you've eliminated viral sources, you can use a folder size visualizer like TreeSize to *see* which folders may be taking more space than others:
http://www.jam-software.com/freeware/index.shtml

CrossClown · Answer

Try the following:
Start -> Run -> Disk Cleanup
Start -> Run -> Disk Defrag
Start -> Right-Click on Computer -> Properties -> In the properties window click on the system restore tab -> then check off the box that says turn off system restore -> Ok and it'll ask you if you wanna turn it off, click yes. Then turn it back on for safety reasons (if your drive space starts going down again and turning off system restore worked to clear alot of it then do it again).

Also, try running malwarebytes to go super deep into viruses and malware crap.

Anonymous · Answer

hi, which contain your black reveal screen and a blinking cursor, its a symptom that your OS' grasp boot record has been corrupted, in step with hazard you have restarted the equipment with a floppy (or CD whether it continuously happens in a floppy) in it that's no longer bootable. -Insert your abode windows intallation CD and boot from it. -once you spot a blue reveal screen welcoming you to abode windows setting up, decide on the restore setting up or Press "R" (w/o the asterisks) -you would be greeted with the aid of a command instantaneous asking you which of them of the abode windows setting up will you restore. it fairly is often the a million (particularly in case you in basic terms have a million abode windows). -you would be able to desire to be or could desire to no longer be asked for administrator password. that's the password which you used to setup your abode windows. enter it and press enter. you would be able to desire to have 3 tries. -Hoping you have entered the password effectively, form-in "fixboot" (lower back without the fees) and press "Y" (for definite while asked) -form "fixmbr" (definite, you're top, no costs) and press Y lower back. -form go out or supply as much as restart the equipment (do no longer forget to do away with the bootable disk from thechronic. -Boot to abode windows oftentimes and unlock some area..do no longer forget to defrag while achieved. Goodluck!

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Hard-drive is running out of space?

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