Simviation Forum - Unusual computer problem: Question here

Feb 4^th, 2011 at 6:13pm

Apex Offline
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I'm having a computer tech person come out next Thurs to check this out, but until then, maybe someone here has an idea what this is all about:

My 40b hard drive has had unused disk space of about 26gb for many years. Since October it's been dropping, right now it's at 13.7gb.

It holds steady for a few days, maybe a week, then drops.

My external drive is unaffected.

I've done several disk cleanups to recover space. The computer is running just fine and at normal speed, all scans are clean, all programs OK. I have not added any software or other items. The system is a Gateway from 2003, no problems until now. Norton is always updated daily. It's not the Norton updates, I've checked right after.

Anybody know what might be causing this?

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Reply #1 - Feb 4^th, 2011 at 7:51pm

Steve M Offline
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You didnt mention defragging, I use O&O defrag which costs money but there are free defraggers out there other than Microsofts default. I also see you are using Norton, and Norton is not such a good antivirus tool. It gets all over your system and to remove it you need to Google for the Norton removal tool, which at best still leaves traces of Norton. The background activity on my pc when I had Norton, seemed to devastate my flight sims performance. I may not have answered your question, but these are two major performance issues I see..

Flying with twins is a lot of fun..

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Reply #2 - Feb 5^th, 2011 at 7:47am

Apex Offline
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Thanks for that, SteveM. I defragged a bit back, it usually says it doesn't need a defrag, I seem to recall it didn't help anyway, but I just ran a defrag analysis and its pretty fragged, so I'm going to run a defrag right now and see what happens.

I'll keep everything you said on file for reference.

I use Norton because it came with the system back in 2003. Any other recommendations?

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Reply #3 - Feb 5^th, 2011 at 8:55am

Steve M Offline
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Cambridge On.

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I use Vipre, ($29/yr) but there are a few good freeware. (Can't remember them at the moment.)
Also a super good free registry cleaner that should work wonders for you..

http://www.glarysoft.com/products/utilities/registry-repair/

Flying with twins is a lot of fun..

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Reply #4 - Feb 5^th, 2011 at 9:54am

ozzy72 Offline
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Might be worth cleaning up your registry (look for EasyCleaner 2.0, this has a registry cleaner, not perfect but better than nothing).
Also use CCleaner regularly, this clears off junk and is a LOT quicker than a disk cleanup. I normally use it once a day on my PC (lots of internet use).

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Reply #5 - Feb 8^th, 2011 at 12:40am

Augustus Offline
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I think you must format your hard drive and make new partitions using any partition maker or DOS...
But before that you should make a backup of your data to any other media e.g; portable hard drive or some thing like else..
After making new partitions I'm sure it will be solved..

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Reply #6 - Feb 9^th, 2011 at 2:16pm

Apex Offline
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Tech is coming out tomorrow morning, Remote-works, they are my bosses tech people, I'll let y'awl know what goes down. All your advice/replies have been noted, thanks for it.

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Reply #7 - Feb 9^th, 2011 at 2:34pm

BuggsK100RS Offline
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Have a look and see if you have got shadow copies switched on. If you have windows will back up all sorts of files using up your hard disk free space.

Run Disk Clean up, Click on the More options tab and then in the lower half of the window you have the option to remove all but your last system restore point and your shadow copies.

That can free up some serious space on your HDD if you have never done it. (I would recommend that you make a new system restore point before you do this just to make shore that if your PC goes tits up you have a point that is up to date)

Hope this helps.

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Reply #8 - Feb 18^th, 2011 at 9:19pm

Apex Offline
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Norton was piling up temporary files in two folders, this has been going on since 2006, which is when I last updated Norton. The tech showed me one of the folders, I discovered another later on. My hard drive is now back to its normal free space, and I now know to delete those temp files.

I have done disk clean and also the more options thing, it's a good idea to check it as other temp files seem to pile up, not sure where from, but disk clean deletes them.

It'll do for now. Thanks for all your help, there's other suggestions there I'll keep in mind for someday soon.

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Reply #9 - Feb 20^th, 2011 at 2:38pm

Ivan Offline
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Dont forget to remove all restore points (advanced options for disk cleanup)

Russian planes: IL-76 (all standard length ones), Tu-154 and Il-62, Tu-134 and An-24RV&&&&AI flightplans and repaints can be found here

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