Thursday, August 19, 2010

Lost: 300 gigabytes of drive space!

Most Windows and PC troubles fit into patterns, but every once in a while a truly weird, never-before-seen problem crops up.

Reader John Willoughby titled his e-mail "A very unusual problem." He wasn't kidding.

"My desktop PC, which has two 360GB drives, began to slow down a few days ago, so much so that it seemed like it was going to seize up. 300GBs of drive space had been swallowed up, and I have no idea how. A search showed that, in one day, hundreds of 1GB temp files had been set up. I deleted these and got most of the lost drive space back. I have no idea how or why those files were created. I'd appreciate any suggestions."
That's the opening item in my weekly WindowsSecrets column this week; we run through what might cause 300 one-gigabyte mystery files to show up within a short time; and look at how to prevent it from happening again.

Other items this week:

  • How to get your startup programs placed in their optimal load order
  • Quieting down a noisy laptop
  • The case of missing the RAM (when 4GB turns into 2.87GB...)
Full issue contents:

Free content posted on Aug. 19, 2010:

 
Paid content (cheap! <g>):

A portion of your support helps children in developing countries
Each month, we send a full year of sponsorship to a different child. Your contributions in August are helping us to sponsor Mathias, an 8-year-old boy from Zambia. Children International channels development aid from donors to Mathias and his community. We also sponsor kids through Save the Children and Plan USA. More info

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