Windows 7 Hard drive space disappearing, literally

[shadowman9]

Hi, I am having a REALLY weird problem. My hard drive space is disappearing GBs per minute. This started yesterday while I was at work and my girlfriend swears she didn't touch my pc at all. This morning I ran the free version of Treesize twice to do a comparison. The only thing that changed was the amount of free space I had at the time of the scan. So apparently no new files are being created? I tried limiting the allocation size for system restore which gave me a few GBs for a second, but then they disappeared again. When I got home last night windows was trying to create a backup, so I set that up to go on to my external hard drive and when I woke up this morning it said the backup had failed. I turned that option off and disconnected my hard drive and still no luck. When I reboot my machine all of my free space returns, but then starts disappearing again! I don't know what else to do... In the time it took me to write this plea I have lost nearly 4gb! Please help!

 

[Highwayman]

Might be good time to start deep anti virus and malware scans

 

[shadowman9]

yea that's kinda what I was afraid of I'm currently using Microsoft Security Essentials and running a full scan. Do you think that will suffice or should I revert to AVG or McAfee? I haven't had a virus issue for a couple years now, but just switched over to MSE when I updated to 7 and now this. lol

 

[Highwayman]

Well I personally prefer to use 3rd party vendors (in my case Avast with IObit 360 & Malwarebytes) as windows defender was utterly useless so I don't hold much faith in Microsofts 1st attempt at a anti-virus app.

 

[shadowman9]

Ok, I reinstalled McAfee, uninstalled MSE, and installed Malwarebytes. Ran everything and Malwarebytes found 1 threat, but even though I've gotten rid of it, the problem persists. If you've got any last-ditch efforts I'd love to hear them, but I am at a loss. Thanks for your help thus far!

 

[Highwayman]

Another experiment would be to load up safe mode as see if the same thing is happening, that would eliminate any doubt about a suspect programs causing it or not...since safe mode doesnt load any drivers or 3rd party apps.

 

[tblount]

Hi, I am having a REALLY weird problem. My hard drive space is disappearing GBs per minute. This started yesterday while I was at work and my girlfriend swears she didn't touch my pc at all. This morning I ran the free version of Treesize twice to do a comparison. The only thing that changed was the amount of free space I had at the time of the scan. So apparently no new files are being created? I tried limiting the allocation size for system restore which gave me a few GBs for a second, but then they disappeared again. When I got home last night windows was trying to create a backup, so I set that up to go on to my external hard drive and when I woke up this morning it said the backup had failed. I turned that option off and disconnected my hard drive and still no luck. When I reboot my machine all of my free space returns, but then starts disappearing again! I don't know what else to do... In the time it took me to write this plea I have lost nearly 4gb! Please help!

Are you sure that hybernation isn't building restore files? Sounds like it's happening when left alone. That's when hybernation is activated.

 

[shadowman9]

well. I am not sure what worked, but I am no longer losing free space into the abyss. At least not for the moment. I went through multiple full scans with the various anti-virus apps everyone suggested and while I'm sure my PC's health is better for it, none solved the problem. It was only after I disabled all services and then went through re-enabling them one by one that whatever was wrong seemed to fix itself. I have restored all of the services I turned off and for whatever reason that did the trick. Thanks again for all your help and suggestions. + reps all around!

 

[tblount]

well. I am not sure what worked, but I am no longer losing free space into the abyss. At least not for the moment. I went through multiple full scans with the various anti-virus apps everyone suggested and while I'm sure my PC's health is better for it, none solved the problem. It was only after I disabled all services and then went through re-enabling them one by one that whatever was wrong seemed to fix itself. I have restored all of the services I turned off and for whatever reason that did the trick. Thanks again for all your help and suggestions. + reps all around!

One of my last blogs... about Speed tweeks listed below in my tag line. Covers about 200 features/services you can turn off. A few people have commented that the tweeks also reduce the boot time. I've got mine down to 17 seconds as measured by BootRacer. I can tell you one thing for sure.. the I7 processor with Win 7 64 bit and unnecessary services turned off will easily open 100 windows without crashing. I've opened about 65 to 70... lost exact count... and still had almost 50% of my resources available... and I've only got 3 gb ram. I can only dream what 24 gb could do.