I'm losing free space on my hard drive

[cadenton]

For the last three years the available free space on my 8 gig hard drive has lingered at about 2 gigs.
In the last few weeks, I am now mysteriously down to about 1 gig of free hard drive space.
I have not installed any new software to speak of, nor have I loaded any large files, etc.
I defrag about once-a-month. Although defraging, doesn't seem to recover any of my "lost" free space.
At this rate, I'll be out of hard drive space in a couple months -- for no apparent reason.
Do you have any ideas as to what may be causing this?
Thanks.
Craig

 

[carrr]

Have you run a full virus scan lately??

 

[cadenton]

Yes, I ran a full Norton AV scan a week ago.

 

[WheeDoggy]

A few things to think about.........

Are you using recent virus definitions?

Also, had you turned on logging for anything when this all started?

Has anyone else been using your PC?

Have you been cleaning your caches?

 

[cadenton]

Yes. No. No. Yes.

 

[WheeDoggy]

Here are some options that may help.

You might want to try a free online virus scanner such as:

http://housecall.trendmicro.com/housecall/start_corp.asp

or Symantec.com.
You could also download a decent free virus scanner @

http://www.grisoft.com

(AVG)

If no luck........

Start-> Run
SFC
>OK<
This will check alterations to system files.
Also,
Once a day, goto Start->Find->Files or Folders.
Click on the Date tab.
Tick Find all Files.
Select Modified (try with Created also) from the dropdown menu.
Then select a date range corresponding from when the drivespace started disappearing to the present.
See if anything suspicious.

You could also do this once a day, checking the past day, in an attempt to monitor for anything suspicious.

Good luck.

 

[flareman]

If you have been spending time on-line, it wouldn't hurt to check for ad-ware. There is a free utility called Ad-Aware from Lavasoft, which you can download from

http://www.lavasoftusa.com/

or

http://www.cnet.com/software/0-806181-8-7309404-1.html

You'll be amazed at how much junk it finds.

David

 

[killowhat]

try these;
sure delete
bc wipe
spybot
hd valet
space odyessy
spider
reg cleaner

 

[wolluf]

Get a breakdown of disk usage with

http://www.lpacomputers.telinco.co.uk/ddsetup.zip

 

[BuckeyeComputers]

Another thing that i remember by reading another post was a key logging program, i use to use one to keep track of my kids usage and those little devils use up alot of harddrive space