My hard drive space keeps disappearing, but I am not downloading anything!

I

ironpony

Member
My hard drive space keeps disappearing so I made a conscious effort not to download anything till I figure out what the problem is. I waited 2 weeks, and my hard drive space went from about 15 GB now down to 1.5! So something keeps filling it up, and I cannot ascertain the source.

I did test where I am trying to time it, and it seems that about 0.02 GB of space disappears every five minutes about. I waited a five minutes each time, and it keeps happening.

I would like to know what is happening to the computer that causes this to happen. Everyone I ask keeps telling to me back up all my stuff on an external hard drive, which I have already done. But that doesn't really solve the problem. The hard drive will keep filling up, regardless of how many external hard drives I buy over the years, and I would to be able to figure out what is taking up 0.02 GB of space every five minutes.

Is this normal? What could it be, if I am not putting anything else on my computer?
 
Sounds like you may be infected. Please do the following.

1.

Please download AdwCleaner by Xplode onto your Desktop.



•Please close all open programs and internet browsers.
•Double click on adwcleaner.exe to run the tool.
•Click on Scan.
•After the scan you will need to click on clean for it to delete the adware.
•Your computer will be rebooted automatically. A text file will open after the restart.
•Please post the content of that logfile in your reply.
•You can find the logfile at C:\AdwCleaner[Sn].txt as well - n is the order number.

2.

Please download Junkware Removal Tool to your desktop.

•Shutdown your antivirus to avoid any conflicts.
•Very important that you run the tool in this manner:
Right-mouse click JRT.exe and select Run as administrator
Do NOT just double-click it.
•The tool will open and start scanning your system.
•Please be patient as this can take a while to complete.
•On completion, a log (JRT.txt) is saved to your desktop and will automatically open.
•Post the contents of JRT.txt in your next message.

3.

Please download Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware and save it to your desktop.
  • Double-click mbam-setup.exe and follow the prompts to install the program.
  • At the end, be sure a checkmark is placed next to
    • Update Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware
    • and Launch Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware
  • then click Finish.
  • If an update is found, it will download and install the latest version. Please keep updating until it says you have the latest version.
  • Once the program has loaded, select Perform quick scan, then click Scan.
  • When the scan is complete, click OK, then Show Results to view the results.
  • Be sure that everything is checked, and click Remove Selected.
  • A log will be saved automatically which you can access by clicking on the Logs tab within Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware

If for some reason Malwarebytes will not install or run please download and run Rkill.scr, Rkill.exe, or Rkill.com. If you are still having issues running rkill then try downloading these renamed versions of the same program.

EXPLORER.EXE
IEXPLORE.EXE
USERINIT.EXE
WINLOGON.EXE

But DO NOT reboot the system and then try installing or running Malwarebytes. If Rkill (which is a black box) appears and then disappears right away or you get a message saying rkill is infected, keep trying to run rkill until it over powers the infection and temporarily kills it. Once a log appears on the screen, you can try running malwarebytes or downloading other programs.

Please post the log that Malwarebytes displays on your screen.

4.

Download OTL to your Desktop


•Double click on the icon to run it. Make sure all other windows are closed and to let it run uninterrupted.
•Click on Minimal Output at the top
•Click the Quick Scan button. Do not change any settings unless otherwise told to do so. The scan wont take long.
◦When the scan completes, it will open two notepad windows. OTL.Txt and Extras.Txt. These are saved in the same location as OTL. Just post the OTL.txt file in your reply.

then post the logs from the following 4 programs.

1. Adwcleaner
2. Junkware removal tool
3. Malwarebytes
4. OTL
 
Something could be creating temporary files and/or "dump" files..

Download Ccleaner and run it. https://www.piriform.com/ccleaner

It'll clear up quite some space.

Edit: John posted at the same time... Follow his advice, but CCleaner is still a great program. :P
 
Okay thanks. Aside from installing and running software, is there anything else I can do ascertain the source of where all this new data is coming from, so I can delete it directly? My external hard drive is not at my place right now, and I would like to take on the problem head on. It's just that I barely have enough room to install any new programs now. If it is temp files or dump files, where would I locate those most likely? I have a PC, if that matters.
 
Okay thanks, but what is the difference between boot and storage? I googled it but boot drive did not exactly come up. There is boot disk?
 
You said your external drive. Externals are usually used for extra storage. Is the issue with your external drive or another drive?
 
Sorry, I meant I am using the external to make back up files, since the internal drive is filling up. That's the drive I meant. The one that is internal. Sorry I am bad at computer terminology, but I mean the one that is called 'Local disk (C:)', as it is called on the computer.
 
Okay thanks. I did that and I found out what is filling up with space. Windows has been installing a lot of updates on my computer whenever I shot it off. Basically when I shut down the computer it will say not to turn off the computer because it needs to install updates. However, I had no idea the updates had been filling up so much space. But according to winderstat, that's what's doing it. I would like to delete a large portion of the updates, probably at least half, in order to get the space back to where it was a few months ago.

However, how do I know which updates I need to keep as oppose to which ones I can get rid of? Also, the computer always says that it needs to install the updates after shutting down, and the only way I can get it stop, is too actually cut the power to the computer, forcing the shut down.

Is their anything I can do to stop all these updates from coming in? For the past few weeks it's been 5-10 a day.
 
What is the total size of the drive/partition? Windows updates don't take up that much space. And there is no way there are 5 to 10 new updates every day. Windows updates come about once a month or so.
 
I am seriously getting 5 to 10 everyday. If I am not suppose to, then it must be some fluke. Maybe I am getting the same ones over and over? Either way, it has not taken up 17 GB of space, after cleaning my computer again, from a couple of months ago.
 
Then those updates are failing to install and will try reinstalling every day. Go into windows updates and click on View update history.





Check the status column to see if they have installed successfully or failed.
 
Mate, try booting your machine in to Safe Mode (spam F8 during boot up)
Go to 'C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution' and delete every file and folder inside.
This will delete all your Windows Update logs and files - so when you restart again Windows will do a 'fresh' look at your updates, instead of looking through old logs to see what you need <--- very simplified, but generally true :)
Regardless if this solves the issue or not, it's a good thing to do every now and then :)
 
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