Memory keeps disappearing

[Star of Penumbra]

The memory on my C drive keeps disappearing. I have been completely unable to find a reason. I rarely save or create new files, so I admit I'm stumped. I used to have a couple hundred MB free, but lately it hasn't risen above 70, and it seems that every time I start the computer again, I've lost another MB or two. Does anyone know why this happens and how I can fix it?

 

[fgarvb1]

Thats not good!

Sounds like a virus or a bad hard drive.

Although that is not memory that is data stored on your harddrive.

 

[SlickTony]

Micro Trend Housecall has a good virus checker that you can use without registering.

 

[fgarvb1]

I did a search on Yahoo using (data disappearing off of harddrive)

no matter what it is you have problems.

 

[SlickTony]

Fortunately, if it's your hard drive, hard drives are getting cheaper all the time.

 

[Jaded1]

The memory on my C drive keeps disappearing. I have been completely unable to find a reason. I rarely save or create new files, so I admit I'm stumped. I used to have a couple hundred MB free, but lately it hasn't risen above 70, and it seems that every time I start the computer again, I've lost another MB or two. Does anyone know why this happens and how I can fix it?

Well, Star of Penumbra these guys sound like the have you on the right track. I would update your anti virsus then scan your hard drive. This should isolate your virsus and allow you to get rid of it. Unfortunatly the damage to your drive c may be permanent.

If you haven't run the utility disk clean up and defragmentation in a while you may be able to get some space freed up by deleteing some of the temporary file on your c drive. Then defrag compresses all that open space giving you more room again.

Good luck.

Jaded1, CT

 

[Weird Harold]

I used to have a couple hundred MB free, but lately it hasn't risen above 70, and it seems that every time I start the computer again, I've lost another MB or two. Does anyone know why this happens and how I can fix it?

Windows uses all sorts of temporary files, and doesn't always deleted them when it's done with them.

Also, you may be running aprogram that doesn't close files properly and is leaving "lost clusters" every time you shut down your system.

You may have enabled logging in a program and it's logging a lot of information. Or a spyware is accumulating a large file on you every time the system is running.

Ad-aware or Spybot Search and Destroy are both good spyware removers.

Scandisk can find and recover lost clusters -- make sure you have it set to free them instead of converting them to a file. Do a find files for *.CHK to find the converted lost clusters that scandisk has recovered in the past. Any file named File????.CHK can be deleted to free up the disk space that was lost clusters at one time.

Scandisk in "thorough" mode can also help pinpoint problems with the disk and usually correct them as well.

Any file in your Temp directory can be deleted, as can any file named *.TMP.

Your Temporary Internet files could be set to some insanely high limit and a copy of every page you view is being saved there. -- In Tools -> Internet Options, click the delete files button in the Temporary internet files section. Then click settings to restrict the buffer size to something less than the full disk.

 

[Guest]

what about email accounts and pics saved to documents ? Will that take up alot space as well? I only have about a third left on driveC . I delete my temp files , do scan disc and do defrag also ... can't seem to get mine back no matter what I delete.

 

[Star of Penumbra]

Okay, thank you everybody for the help. Incidentally, I run Norton Cleansweep every time I start my computer to get rid of all the temprary files (it adds up to a lot with all the time I'm online).

Also, I use Yahoo for my email, so stuff is stored on THIER HDs instead of mine.

I also figured out what had happened. A program I've been using(nnnesterJ.exe) created a couple of large files (about 35 MB each) that didn't do anything. Presumably this was caused by my fiddling with the settings, but I can't say for sure.

Regardless, everything's straightened out now.

 

[SuperShyGuy]

Glad to hear your problem is sorted out. I had a similar problem with my old hard drive that turned out to be a worm tha fried my system. Needless to say I have a different hard drive now. Lucky for you!