Hard drive completely FULL !!

[aldboomer7]

i have a computer here that belong to a family member, its not a year old yet, it has 512 ram, and a 80 hard drive. What would be filling up the hard drive, she doesn't have that much installed on it.. just the usual...printer, scanner, camera..
and anyway, she was asking me about her computer, and i told her to check the hard drive "pie"... and its completely FULL... she noticed it as she was online, and a window would pop up saying she was extremely low on space??
She uses Norton, and Adware, and Spybot ...but it shows the norton hasn't scanned it in a months time.. so, maybe something has gotten on it and is blocking it.. ????
but .. what could fill up the whole hard drive????
thanks for any help...

 

[DonNagual]

probably (hopefully) just a bunch of unecessary temp files and offline content.

Go back to the "pie" and click on the "disk cleanup" button and see how much extra space you get after that.

 

[DonNagual]

On another note, why hasn't norton scanned for so long. Kinda scary... is her subscription up to date? Gotta have up to date virus software these days. Just to risky without it.

 

[aldboomer7]

yes.. her norton is up to date.. just was wondering if maybe something is stopping it.. but i went through all the temp. files.. and all that..
At the most.. she should only have about 1/4 of her hard drive used...but about a week ago.. it was 3/4 full.. and this weekend.. she checked it .. and she hasn't been downloading anything etc.. and now's it completely full. ?????

 

[Spike]

install the Treesize utility on the following link...

http://www.jam-software.com/freeware/index.shtml

..and tell it to scan the system drive. It will show you a folder tree, and a colour coding according to the folders of the largest size. Folow the folders marked red, untill you get to the bottom folder. This will be the one that contains the rubbish (assuming it is only one).

Find that folder in explorer, and tell us what you find there

If there's a space problem, the treesize utility is very small, and so simply deleteing some unwanted filles should give you the space to install it. Even a single MP3 would provide enough space.

 

[aldboomer7]

i will tell her to try that... but when i was over there.. was gonna try to do a system restore.. but not enough room for that..
If we have to go to the web site you suggested, and we would download it.. i'm afraid that it will not do it.. cuz of no room??!!??
Even when i went in and start the Norton scan.. i had to sit there.. cuz on "several" files.. it couldnt' scan, because it said it wasnt' able to .. because of the full hard drive.

 

[Spike]

If you clear enough space, and install it immediately, it should be fine. If it didn't install, it would just be a matter of having to check the folder sizes manually, that's all. All it's trying to do, is to locate where the files are that are taking all this space so that you can tell us what and where they are.

 

[aldboomer7]

I will try what you said.. in the next dayor two.. when i get back over to her house.. hopefully it will show up something !! i'll get back w/you later
thanks.
:slurp:

 

[Samstoned]

when was the last time ya cleaned out the temp files
is she using IE or mozilla /netscape
if you don't setup something to clean the cache out this will get filled up
then you got windows temp files they don't allows empty like they should
and email when you delete it go's to trash and sits there till you empty it
I can't stand norton its a big time fraud

 

[altheman]

if she uses internet explorer, go to tools->internet options->settings, and change amount of disk space to be used for temp files to about 1mb. for some CRAZY reason, the default is about a gig .
also try ccleaner (freeware)

 

[aldboomer7]

Tree Size information

ok.. i just downloaded the Treesize thing... and had it go throught the computer.. and it shows 96% Internet logs.. everything else was 1 or 2 or 0 %
What are Internet Logs???? can these be deleted safely?????

thanks !!!

 

[mailpup]

Is ZoneAlarm on this computer? Those logs are likely from it.

 

[aldboomer7]

yes.. she has zone alarm installed on her computer.. Is zone alarm not a good firewall to use????

 

[aldboomer7]

And what would make Zone Alarm fill up the whole hard drive like it did???

 

[Spike]

There should be an obtion in ZA to disable logging

 

[Samstoned]

and that should fix that
watch out ZA is fussy delete a little at a time
and if you disable reboot right away

 

[akaivan]

ok all you need to do i think is a lil cleaning, the above statements are all good ideas, her download here CCLEANER Message me if you need anything