An Invisible Enemy Is Filling My Hard Drives

Viruses and worms
1

Hello forum, :slight_smile:

Something wicked this way comes. I could only account for half the contents of a “data” drive that was “full”. I scanned the drive and found nothing. I started moving files until I moved the wrong files and another hard drive is now “full” when it should be about 70% full.

Any suggestions?

Thank you. :slight_smile:

2

Do you have a Disk Defragmenter?

You could have excess “slack space” on your drive from a long period of adding and deleting files.

Also, run chkdsk (or scandisk if you have Win9x), and check the TEMP folder on your harddrive for files you can safely delete.

3

Chkdsk seems to find an error and then discontinues the scan. I’ll run a defrag though. Thank you. :slight_smile:

4

I forgot to tell you this.

When running chkdsk use the “/f” switch, like this: chkdsk c: /f

The /f tells it to actually “fix” the problem. :slight_smile:

5

I defragmented one of the drives and I can only account for about 6 GB in the two remaining folders on that drive yet 47 GB of space on that drive is still occupied.

6

Do you know what files occupy so much Space? Have you clean the Temp folders and the Temporary internet files of yur browser? You can use the Windows search for this.

7

I don’t have Temp folders on this particular drive (G:). The Temp files are on the system drive (C:). ATM it seems to be a virus or something.

Does “KAVITABD.DAT” mean anything to anybody? This file is only 230 Kb in size and it is on both of the strangely full drives.

EDIT: I now have 37 GB of nothing on the hard disk that I dubbed “data_drv[G:]”. I am scanning this drive with Avast AND AVG, LOL. :slight_smile:

Here is a sample:
G:\RECYCLER\S-1-5-21-2025429265-746137067-839522115-1003\Dd14.asf

I can’t see the “RECYCLER” folder. I have set “view” to show all files hidden and system and I still can’t see any folders on my data drive. :slight_smile:

But as I type, both of those anti-virus programs are scanning 37 GB of files.

8

The RECYCLER folder is the Recycle Bin - you can try to discard its contents (it may be taking lots of space, indeed).

Another thing may be System Restore – try disabling System Restore for this volume (–> Control Panel/System/System Restore).

Anyway, I don’t think it’s going to be a virus (or any other malware)… :wink:

Hope this helps,
Vlk

9

Problem resolved…well, almost I think.

I entered attrib g:\recycler -s -h and now I can account for the previously invisible 37 GB of data in Windows explorer. :slight_smile:

Does the DOS window override Windows Explorer because I set Windows Explorer to allow me to view all files - including hidden and system files - but this “recycler” folder was still invisible.

What the hell are these potentially giant sized “recycler” folders for anyway?

Thank you. :slight_smile:

10

That’s the weird thing. I thought I had emptied the recycle bin but this huge 37 GB file remained. :slight_smile:

Another thing may be System Restore -- try disabling System Restore for this volume (--> Control Panel/System/System Restore).
It appears System Restore is already suspended on all my drives but I have set a couple of restore points recently.

Thanks for your help everyone. :slight_smile: