Lost about 5 and 20GB's

C

compaqman

Member
Ok, within 5Days I somehow lost 5GB's on one compter and about 20GB's on another now i have 1.99GB's and 9.26GB's left.:eek: I have been saving my files on another networked computer, for the past 4 Months, I dont know where my storage went.:eek: I am now using WinDirStat to find a BIG file of problem:mad:

Also I will be dissconnected from any Internet sources incase of a Hacker/virus
 
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Temporary files will be stored on your computer, either from the internet or recently accessed files. The page file is most likely has increased in size as well.
 
One idea there would be to use the search for files option found on the Start drop down menu if you know the names of the files or at least the 3 digit file extension. From there you can run a search on the entire drive to see if they were tucked aways deep in some sub folders under your user name.

You might also have to change administrative permissions to have full access to them once found. That will also show if the files actually were copied onto the drive via network and are found intact.

The errors with low drive space are often seen with "out of memory" or drive space type messages when encroaching on space reserved for virtual memory referring to the paging file OMEGA mentioned before.
 
look under

c:\documents and settings\youruser\local settings

you will have to view hidden folders to see this. Then right click the local settings folder and go to properties and see what is listed as its size. A temp or log file gone amuck would most likely live in here. Delete the file or folder and you should be fine.

Or if you want to view everything you can try this, but it doesn't work too well in windows

Code: 
dir /o /s /p c:\Documents and Settings\username\Local settings
 
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If you get stuck once locating the problem file or folder when trying to delete it there's one ffreeware called TakeOwnership that adds that option to the menu when right clicking on a file or folder. That would likely allow you to continue on if running into any access denied error messages for seeing it removed.

On occasion with two drives seeing two separate versions of Windows here(Vista current default, XP) I often run into that type of problem where the tool can help out. The article and instructions about how to use the freeware as well as the download link is seen at http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/wind...ership-to-explorer-right-click-menu-in-vista/
 
But 10 to 1 it was still an MS file or folder's log that caused a problem there. Since your account is the administator's? that would be no surprise to be in a different location especially when configured for networking.
 
Restore points use a degree of space but nowhere near 20gb or far more people would have already been raising flags about running out of space too fast. On average try under 2gb since each calendar month passed sees new ones created and old ones deleted automatically by Windows there.
 
if you unrar files sometimes the temp storage for rar files are still there.

i'd use a program called crap cleaner. it's free:
http://www.ccleaner.com/
you get to choose which files/locations to delete. it'll wipe almost everything you don't need. if you want your cookies saved (for password sites) then go to options and choose which cookies to keep. it also has a safe registry cleaner and installed program remover/renamer.

you can also remove xp/vista uninstallers with this program to save some mb of space. turning off system restore also helps... if you're like me who don't use it much.
 
CCleaner will also go after files you are storing at times like having it go into a folder full of hpg files and seeing it go after them thinking they are simple clutter. For preserving your log in type information you uncheck the items in the browser history section until deciding to use the delete off line content option in IE itself.

The registry cleaner is a basic one for items like invalid shortcuts. For the more advanced user there more involded programs for going in and manually seeing items like main reg keys removed completely even indivisual drivers out of the system32 folder. RegCleaner is one that opens to a main window displaying all non MS main keys there plus includes an automatic registry cleanup and various other options like the regedit.

RegSeeker is one to find and remove specifc keys or values as well plus track down and remove drivers once a program has been removed. With that one you specify the driver or registy value to find for removal.
 
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