Disc Full

[Purhonen]

PROBLEM: Windows Vista Home Premium displays "Disk Full" error message; many operations can not be done.

(HP Model a1747c desktop, AMD Athalon 64x2 dual core 4600+, 2.4 Ghz, 3GB RAM, 32 bit)

 

 

SYMPTOMS: Deleting data makes no noticeable difference on Disk Capacity pie chart or Used Space/Free Space numbers in Properties; very slow operation in general; unable to install small stand-alone utilities or run normal operations (for example Mozy online backup); hard drive NOT full when looked at with program which loads prior to Windows (Linux - Ubuntu - or a disk repair utility such as Parted Magic [https://partedmagic.com/]).

ACTIONS TAKEN: Ran SpinRite (https://www.grc.com/spinrite.htm) which revealed a healthy hard drive. Assuming the hard drive is in fact healthy, I'm left thinking the problem is Vista and Vista's alone.

 

HOPE: To get a healthy, normal, operating hard drive.

 

Thanks, Steve

[crp]

have you started in safe mode and cleaned up the Recylce Bin ?

[abarbarian]

Have you run a scan with your anti virus program and any malaware programs ?

[goretsky]

Hello,

 

What is the brand and model of the hard disk drive installed in the computer? What is is storage capacity, and how much of it currently reported as being used?

 

Regards,

 

Aryeh Goretsky

[amenditman]

I saw some malware recently which shrunk the customer's C: partition and used the newly available space to install itself.

There were a lot of weird unknown processes running and starting themselves. Googling the names came up with very little of use.

Didn't want to spend a bunch of time and money figuring it out.

Strangest thing I've ever encountered. We don't know exactly what it was doing, but it couldn't be good.

 

I ran an Avast Boot-Time scan and Hitman Pro and that got rid of all the unknown processes which were starting and running.

My customer is a bit paranoid about her computer and had good recent backups.

 

We used Dban to wipe the drive (don't just format, wipe it completely), re-installed Windows and restored her applications, settings, and misc. user account stuff from the backups.

 

Everything has been back to normal for several months now.

[Guest LilBambi]

Some OEMs have their D: drive as a visible partition housing the restore partition and it is always FULL and drives people nuts. You would just have to change how it reports that restore partition so you don't get those stupid notifications. I wouldn't suggest doing that on your C: drive though. Just the pretty much static restore partition. If your computer is one that actually shows the restore partition in My Computer.

 

Or is this problem definitely on your C: drive?

 

Do you have two partitions: one for operating system (c:) and (d:) for your data (My Documents) on the another?

 

Just trying to determine your setup...

[Purhonen]

have you started in safe mode and cleaned up the Recylce Bin ?

 

Yes, with no noticeable change is the C: drive "fullness"

 

Steve

[Purhonen]

Have you run a scan with your anti virus program and any malaware programs ?

 

Yes. Two scans: one with the realtime anti-virus program, Ad Aware, and, one with the standalone program Malewarebytes. No change.

 

I wanted to do a malware scan on boot-up PRE-Windows loading with WOD (Windows Offline Defender) but I got a message stating that an Internet connection was not available so the program would not run (presumably and sensibly because it could not update its definitions). Don't know why this occurred as it is always connected via Ethernet cable to the building's Internet connection.

 

Tried to run the same pre-Windows loading scan with HitMan Pro, but the free trial period had expired and I'm too cheap to buy a copy.

 

Steve

[Purhonen]

Hello,

 

What is the brand and model of the hard disk drive installed in the computer? What is is storage capacity, and how much of it currently reported as being used?

 

Regards,

 

Aryeh Goretsky

 

Haven't gotten the brand/model of the HDD; will do so and post it. The capacity is something like 240GB and all but 200MB is reported as being used.

 

Steve

 

I saw some malware recently which shrunk the customer's C: partition and used the newly available space to install itself.

There were a lot of weird unknown processes running and starting themselves. Googling the names came up with very little of use.

Didn't want to spend a bunch of time and money figuring it out.

Strangest thing I've ever encountered. We don't know exactly what it was doing, but it couldn't be good.

 

I ran an Avast Boot-Time scan and Hitman Pro and that got rid of all the unknown processes which were starting and running.

My customer is a bit paranoid about her computer and had good recent backups.

 

We used Dban to wipe the drive (don't just format, wipe it completely), re-installed Windows and restored her applications, settings, and misc. user account stuff from the backups.

 

Everything has been back to normal for several months now.

 

Yes, may have to resort to this. Will definitely NOT reinstall Vista. Will use either XP or Win 7. Considering XP because will use computer ONLY for building security system - it will NOT be connected to the Internet.

 

Steve

Edited November 4, 2013 by Purhonen

[Purhonen]

Some OEMs have their D: drive as a visible partition housing the restore partition and it is always FULL and drives people nuts. You would just have to change how it reports that restore partition so you don't get those stupid notifications. I wouldn't suggest doing that on your C: drive though. Just the pretty much static restore partition. If your computer is one that actually shows the restore partition in My Computer.

 

Or is this problem definitely on your C: drive?

 

Do you have two partitions: one for operating system (c:) and (d:) for your data (My Documents) on the another?

 

Just trying to determine your setup...

 

Yes, system has a visible D: restore drive and it is NOT full; it's about 75% full.

 

Yes, problem is definitely with the C: drive only. And no, there are not separate partitions for OS and data.

 

Steve

[Guest LilBambi]

Well, then it looks like getting it off the net and reinstalling the system (Vista sucks!) so yeah, almost anything but that LOL!

 

I would also consider changing passwords for system and anything you have signed in on that computer just to be sure.

 

Begins to sound like hidden rootkit stuff ... and not all rootkits can be found or known, or removed.

[Purhonen]

Goretsky:

 

Here are the specs for the HDD:

SAMSUNG SP2504C SCSI Disk

Total Capacity: 232GB

Drive C: 226.62

Drive D: 6.26 (Recovery partition)

Formatted in NTFS

 

Steve

[zlim]

Check the size of the WinSxs folder. I read there were problems with that in Vista.

If it is large, you've found the problem.

http://www.thewindow...der-windows-7-8

This concentrates more on 7 and 8. I'll see what I can find specifically for Vista.

 

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If the size of your WinSxs folder is the problem, here are some posts

http://boshdirect.co...-of-winsxs.html

http://www.techrepub...and-compclnexe/

http://support.micro....com/kb/2795190

http://answers.micro...b0aadf47?page=5 The 2nd to last post on page 5 from May 5th 2013

Edited November 8, 2013 by zlim

[goretsky]

Hello,

 

Hmm.... couldn't find anything unusual about the hard disk drive. Looks like a regular Samsung HDD without any specific model-related issues.

 

Perhaps running a quadratic disk space analysis against the hard disk dive by using a program like WinDirStat will help you identify what directories are consuming the most space, and then you can look at the files and remove (move to a different partition, delete, whatever) the directories or files that are consuming the most space.

 

Regards,

 

Aryeh Goretsky

[Guest LilBambi]

Yes, since the offending file/files could be anywhere on the system really.

 

You have checked that there are no HUGE Excel documents in your documents area? Have you tried sorting the files in your document area by size? Or searching for .xls or .xlsx files and sorting results by size.

 

Just to make sure it's not one of those corrupted Excel documents that go wild on drive space.

Edited November 10, 2013 by LilBambi

[Purhonen]

Hello,

 

Hmm.... couldn't find anything unusual about the hard disk drive. Looks like a regular Samsung HDD without any specific model-related issues.

 

Perhaps running a quadratic disk space analysis against the hard disk dive by using a program like WinDirStat will help you identify what directories are consuming the most space, and then you can look at the files and remove (move to a different partition, delete, whatever) the directories or files that are consuming the most space.

 

Regards,

 

Aryeh Goretsky

 

Goretsky,

 

I was unable to install small, stand-alone utilities which can list the files by size for analysis.

 

Perhaps WinDirStat will be different, I will give it a shot.

 

I suspect it won't install as that is one of the problems with this whole thing - I've tried installing some things and for a myriad of reasons (a myriad of error messages which I did not screen shot) they fail.

 

Steve

 

Yes, since the offending file/files could be anywhere on the system really.

 

You have checked that there are no HUGE Excel documents in your documents area? Have you tried sorting the files in your document area by size? Or searching for .xls or .xlsx files and sorting results by size.

 

Just to make sure it's not one of those corrupted Excel documents that go wild on drive space.

 

LilBambi,

 

Have not done this. Don't expect this to be a problem because really very little document generation occurs on this machine.

 

Regardless, I'm game and will give it a try.

 

Steve

[Guest LilBambi]

That sounds like a backup of your files and a clean install would be best at this point.

[ross549]

http://www.steffengerlach.de/freeware/

 

Here's a great tool that does not need to be installed that will give you a pie chart breakdown of where the space is going on this drive. You can than go in to the offending folder using Windows Explorer and do a "Shift delete" (using those two keys) to remove the offending files from the drive.

 

Good luck.

 

Adam