Missing 25 GB

D

DCrews

New Member
Hi,

I'm having a problem with my hard drive. I seem to have lost approximately 25 GB for no apparent reason.

Awhile back, I performed a routine disk cleanup. Afterwards, I took a look at my C drive to see how much free space I had. The total capacity of the drive is 51 GB. The pie chart showed it split even, 50/50. Roughly 25 GB of free space and 25 GB of used space. Well, about a month later I get a warning saying my computer is low on memory. It said I only had around 150 mb of free space! Naturally I racked my brain trying to figure out what I could have saved or installed on the drive in the past month that could have done this. The only program I had installed was Dreamweaver 8 which obviously doesn't take up anything close to 25 GB. Failing to come up with a solution, I decided to just delete some older programs and files that I no longer needed in the meantime. I was able to free up about 9 GB, but the 25 was still mysteriously absent. Well, in about a weeks time that 9 GB disappeared. Again, without installing or saving anything substaintial in that time period.

I've tried everything I can think of. Disk clean up, deleting restore points, deleting files from past windows updates that were not needed, etc etc. These don't free up any substantial amount of space. I used a program that scans your hard drive and shows exactly how much space is being used by each folder. I was unable to locate anything that looked suspicious. I've also run virus scans, adware/spyware scans, etc.

I'm pretty desperate right now, and I'm not exactly a computer tech wiz, so if anyone could offer up some advice I would be extremely grateful.
 
I have two suggestions,

1. Have you tried a system restore? ( I know you deleted some but you might as well try it)

2. Reformat, save everything you need and reformat the harddrive and see what happens.
 
Yeah, I did try a system restore before I deleted them all. Didn't have any luck with that.

Reformatting is probably worth a try.

Thanks for the suggestions.
 
Can you give us a screenshot of your hard drive properties, and what model/size of hard drive you actually have, along with partitons, etc?
 
yeah definatly check for partitions...you might have accidentally got a virus somewhere that isnt showing up in the scans but that partitions your hard drive....i havent heard of one but it would make sense...otherwise see if maybe your "surfing" of the internet, if u do, got you loaded on cookies and accidental downloads and stuff...other wise reformatting would be the best route
 
Aero said:
yeah definatly check for partitions...you might have accidentally got a virus somewhere that isnt showing up in the scans but that partitions your hard drive....i havent heard of one but it would make sense...otherwise see if maybe your "surfing" of the internet, if u do, got you loaded on cookies and accidental downloads and stuff...other wise reformatting would be the best route
Click to expand...

Virus making partitions is very un-proable, same with surfing the web and getting 25 gigs worth of cookies.

I would say re-install windows, or check your IDE/SATA controller drivers, they could be corrpupt and causing some faulty readings.

Also check your HDD cables and see if they are all connected properly, no dust, anything that could cause them to come loose.
 
Well, I went ahead with the reformat, which appears to have worked. Now its just a matter of putting my files back on the machine. I would love to know what caused this, but I probably never will.

Thanks to everyone for your help.
 
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