Author Topic: An Invisible Enemy Is Filling My Hard Drives  (Read 17409 times)

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Seamus Warren

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An Invisible Enemy Is Filling My Hard Drives
« on: April 06, 2003, 03:17:48 AM »
Hello forum, :)

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. :)

n4cer

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Re:An Invisible Enemy Is Filling My Hard Drives
« Reply #1 on: April 06, 2003, 04:10:49 AM »
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.

Seamus Warren

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Re:An Invisible Enemy Is Filling My Hard Drives
« Reply #2 on: April 06, 2003, 04:36:43 AM »
Chkdsk seems to find an error and then discontinues the scan. I'll run a defrag though. Thank you. :)

n4cer

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Re:An Invisible Enemy Is Filling My Hard Drives
« Reply #3 on: April 06, 2003, 05:17:31 AM »
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.  :)

Seamus Warren

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Re:An Invisible Enemy Is Filling My Hard Drives
« Reply #4 on: April 06, 2003, 12:44:53 PM »
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.

Offline raman

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Re:An Invisible Enemy Is Filling My Hard Drives
« Reply #5 on: April 06, 2003, 12:59:29 PM »
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.
MfG Ralf

Seamus Warren

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Re:An Invisible Enemy Is Filling My Hard Drives
« Reply #6 on: April 06, 2003, 02:09:50 PM »
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.
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. :)

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. :)

But as I type, both of those anti-virus programs are scanning 37 GB of files.
« Last Edit: April 06, 2003, 11:07:56 PM by Seamus Warren »

Offline Vlk

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Re:An Invisible Enemy Is Filling My Hard Drives
« Reply #7 on: April 06, 2003, 11:47:29 PM »
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)... ;)

Hope this helps,
Vlk
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Seamus Warren

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Re:An Invisible Enemy Is Filling My Hard Drives
« Reply #8 on: April 06, 2003, 11:52:35 PM »
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. :)

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. :)
« Last Edit: April 06, 2003, 11:56:54 PM by Seamus Warren »

Seamus Warren

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Re:An Invisible Enemy Is Filling My Hard Drives
« Reply #9 on: April 07, 2003, 12:09:29 AM »
The RECYCLER folder is the Recycle Bin - you can try to discard its contents (it may be taking lots of space, indeed).
That's the weird thing. I thought I had emptied the recycle bin but this huge 37 GB file remained. :)

Quote
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. :)