Tom's Hardware > Forum > Windows XP > Windows XP General Discussion > Hard Disk Space Continually Dissappears

Hard Disk Space Continually Dissappears

Forum Windows XP : Windows XP General Discussion - Hard Disk Space Continually Dissappears

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Lately my Dell laptop has been acting strange. It all started with an unmountable boot drive one day. Running a Windows repair and Checkdisk got me back into Windows, however with no hard disk space available. Any programs or files I tried to move or delete would not "stay gone". I'd delete something, close the folder, reopen it, and the file would be there again. After some work, I was able to fix that and start freeing up space. After freeing up 5 gigs, I went to sleep. When I booted up the computer the next day, it was back at 0 bytes free. Now, no matter how much I delete, over time, my hard disk space available reduces itself to 0. I've never seen anything quite like this before. Normally I'd say I've got some sort of worm or virus, but given a few other variables I'm not so sure. Any solutions or ideas are appreciated.

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Does your HD read correct capacity either in the BIOS, on bootup screen and in Windows? What capacity is your HD? How full was it before you had probs? Been doing any major downloading recently?

Could be your drive was quite full to start and your windows swap file or other swap file is taking most your free space off and on. Don't know about the delete and reappear business though. Very Wierd!

Reaks to me of Virus or HD about to Fail. Either way I would make a backup of your data. What variables make you think your laptop is clean?

Reply to mafadecay

I heared about a virus that replicates in some file sharing progs where they open ports on your PC and use it as a server to host downloads. 100's and 1000's of files downloaded every day without you knowing. Uninstall ALL file sharing progs you have. Search your HD for any AVI, Mpeg, MPG, WMV, Mov files and see if they should be there. Be warned it targets porn sites so some content may offend. Turn off system restore, Make sure your anti virus is upto date, boot into safe mode and run full scans.

Reply to mafadecay
Tom's Hardware > Forum > Windows XP > Windows XP General Discussion > Hard Disk Space Continually Dissappears
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