Something's eating space on my hard drive..... (1 Viewer)

[Dome Vongvises]

I don't get it. I haven't intalled a new program on my c drive in forever, yet everytime I check the hard disk space remaining on my drive, it keeps shrinking and shrinking. Is there a virus on my computer or something?

 

[Carl Johnson]

I'm no expert but is is possible that temporary internet files are building up on your hard drive?

 

[Jeff Kleist]

Dome, sounds like a virus. Have you accidently opened any spam messages lately? Look for huge .eml (email) files on your hard drive, and if you don't need any of your email saved, just delete all of them

 

[Kevin P]

Places to check:

Temporary Internet Files (IE) or Netscape cache folder (Netscape)

Temp folder (C:temp or C:windowstemp, depending on what OS you're running) - this can fill up fast, and if you're not running anything you can safely delete everything from there. A friend of mine managed to fill a 50 gig hard drive with junk in the temp folder!

C:Windows (or C:winnt), look for extraneous files, but they are often 0 bytes in length.

Email files (*.eml, *.dbx in Outlook Express)

If you suspect a virus, get a virus scanner and update it with the latest definitions, and run a scan.

Depending on what version of Windows you're running, there may be a Disk Cleanup utility in Start->Programs->Accessories->System Tools. This will identify stuff that can often be cleaned up.

Also you may want to run Scandisk or Chkdsk to see if you have any corruption or lost clusters.

KJP

 

[Dome Vongvises]

Thanks guys.

Although I'm not sure if it's Temporary Internet Files though. I empty that thing out once every month or so. My c drive is 9 gigs, and this is what has happened lately

6 free, 3 used

5.5 free, 3.5 used

5 free, 4 used

And it keeps going like that for strange reasons. But I'll look into the other things though.

 

[Kimmo Jaskari]

I was recently annoyed by Norton Utilities. It has a "Norton Protect" feature for the recyble bin... basically, no matter how much you empty the recycle bin, Norton hangs on to the files for a week or however long you set it.
Took me a while to figure out why deleting files did nothing to free up space.
Also make sure your disks are fine, by opening a command prompt and typing "chkdsk /f /r" and reboot. Assuming you use Windows 2K or XP pro.

 

[Dome Vongvises]

Regarding *.dbx

- is it safe to delete these?

I took everyone's "house cleaning" suggestions, and they helped immensely.

There were SOOOOOO many junk files in my TEMP folder (even stuff that I had no clue how it got there.)

I want to thank everybody for their help.

 

[Max Leung]

Um, I wouldn't delete the *.dbx files...aren't they where you save your email?

 

[Kevin P]

Regarding *.dbx files - don't delete them, if they're getting big, however, go into your email folders in Outlook/Outlook Express and delete any messages you don't need anymore. Same goes for Sent Items, Drafts, etc. Then in the File menu, select Folder->Compact All Folders. This should shrink the size of your *.dbx files, depending on how many messages you deleted.

If people send you large attachments, or you send emails with large attachments, your dbx files can get huge. Delete those messages first to reclaim the most space.

KJP