SOMETHING WEIRD HAPPENED TO MY PC

ramesese, something is blocking your syestem from seeing the available space on your HDD.

When is the last time your ran your security scans? You may have a virus or trojan, I'm not saying you do, just that you might have gotten something.

Have you recently updated or added new programs? Is this a new computer or new HDD?

I'm assuming that your recycle bin is empty?

Also, try checking temp folders where e-mail attachments, downloaded files, etc. may be stored. I once had an issue like this--Once I cleared out all of the extraneous old e-mail attachments, everything was fine.

Huh??????

If your talking about the disk drive, turn off restore and backup....now how much do you have?

Most cases it goes to all the software and bloatware that consumes your hardrive, that and your music, etc, but you should do a hijackthis scan and review what running on your system, i use winpatrol 2008 to review what im running in my OS

Guys...100+ gigs don't vanish overnight....I think Philly is right, the space might still be there, and he might not be able to see it because of some virus/trojan/malware.
It might not be the recycle bin, seeing that the Recycle Bin takes up around 10% of the whole drive most of the time, nor the TEMP folder, because it'd take a whole lot longer to fill up the TEMP folder with so many gigs.
I agree with Salku, do a scan.
You might also want to try an antivirus [and seeing that you haven't replied yet, I don't know if you've got one]
If you have one, use it. Do a full system scan, without leaving anything out.
If, because of some terribly valid reason you don't have an antivirus, try AVG, which is free for personal use.
Still, try Ccleaner [I wonder why nobody referred this excellent app before :NOTSURE:], it's supposed to be very effective at cleaning the right places.


As an afterthought:
This might be your problem.


[Just kidding]

Storage...memory is another issue entirely.

Very interesting problem though.

Listen to yrag.........

Sys restore uses a nice chunk (Which is why i don't use it) but it don't use that much, sounds like your PC isn't seeing some space.

There a quite a few programs that will list what space is being taken up by which files.. Drivescan by Stardock is one. I used to use one I think was called Filehog? (Google)

Anyway.. it will show you whats taking up the space. Give that a shot.

If it is a virus or trojan, the space is not there. Most viruses replicate themselves, hence they fill your hard drive. My 2 cents. Use the free version of avast if you need an anti virus. It will ask you upon install if you want to do a boot-time scan...choose yes. Voila!

You can go in and set the max size you want it to use.

I used to never use it but decided to give it a shot in the early days of Vista. It has saved my tail hours of work on project files that went corrupt when the program I was using crashed so I have been using it ever since.

I also have Home Basic and a 120Gb HDD.System restore points are typically .3 to .9 Gb.per point.Go to disk clean up,select Files from all users>C:>more options>system restore and shadow copies>clean up.

This will remove all but the most recent restore point.I loose 12Gb over time,Vista will use up to 20% of available Hdd space for points,then it will overwrite the oldest one.Obviously this adds up.

Do NOT delete all your restore points until you are CERTAIN that you don't need them.I dump mine when things are running completely right and have run all updates of all my software for a while.
Windows updates create one before every update,maybe it went bonkers.
[Edit]System restore has saved my bacon on several occasions,and I wouldn't think of disabling it. It's a time machine for dummies like me.

Have you tried running chkdsk /f?

hmm the same happened to me before with Vista Home /trial version/. i resolved to buying Ultimate and it helped. anyways this much space can be lost only because of 1.) some trojan or other virus-like things 2.) oversecurity - it may even hide your files, especially if you're using vista take a good look into all the unnecessary things 3.) HDD problems.
at least these are the only things i can think of. not even restore points OR temp files can use up this much space imho.

Out of 140Gb? That doesn't sound right. My install of Vista Home Basic and related bloatware on this HP/Compaq took up way more than 22Gb.
You need to run a disk manager and see what you have on there.I suspect you are fuller than you may think and your "gas gauge" was stuck.It wouldn't take too many games to fill up 22GB,let alone the rest of your stuff.
Btw,I had 55.0 Gb left,just dumped my old restore points,now I'm up to 69.1 Gb.(almost all I have on this thing came from Stardock/WC).

I only gave my Vista 40gb

Since the OP hasn't returned all this is fairly moot, but....

...let's review:

If he actually meant "memory and disk", then it's an embedded memory virus having it's way with his drive. And where are these stored? That's correct....'Restore' and 'Backup'. When he disables them, it eradicates the files (any remaining he can get with Disk Cleanup) and he can then scan unimpeded for the culprit. If he only meant the disk and the disk space is restored, he has no problem to address. In either case, he simply re-enables Restore/ Backup and moves on....

This is all predicated on him being w/o a backup for 10 minutes. If that's a problem, then someone needs to start a new thread about acute paranoia (although, I think we could just rename this thread   ).



Personally, I think he had a virus and it ate his computer.....and then him................

/me huggles gary

Gary relishes the thought of being hugged by a karma whore

Icky...;)

If you close your eyes, they're all princesses.....  

I think you should get a linux live-CD, boot from that and explore your HDD to look for junk you can't see while Vista is running. Did you install anything made by Sony or play any Sony/BMG music CDs or DVDs? Did you have a bit-torrent client running over night?

Aye, gotta be the backup. I deleted my backup folder and instantly gave me back 80 gigs worth.

Good reminder to look over my HDs (using sequoiaview)

Oh, most definitely -

The OP should run WinDirStat or SequoiaView in order to see if there's a massive file taking up space or a bunch of similarly named/extension files in the same directory or otherwise.

Wizard - You have to take into account that perhaps this was a clean install, or the OP opted for a clean install (Dell allows this, I think). Vista + Crapware = ~15GB. Vista by itself usually takes... ~3GB, last time I checked. The DVD has a bit more than 2GB of stuff on it, so extracted (from CABs), then entire thing may end up as 3-4GB. Take into account videos, games, and pictures, and you have a 20GB+ package.

Backup isn't enabled by default... no matter if you bought the comp from Dell or HP, Backup is NOT enabled by default. I don't even think it's supposed to ship with Home Basic. However, some of you are suggesting it, as you saw it was on for your system, so I could be wrong, but it's not, afaik.

On a side note, I run backup on my server running 3 different dedicated servers (5 in total), and it takes up no more than 25GB per backup, and I have it set that it keeps the 2 most recent backups. That's only 50GB there, so unless he has it set to make an entire ghost image of his HDD, I don't see how it's possible to shrink down to 5GB from 114.

As for System Restore, viruses do tend to hide there... I would think running a restore from an infected restore point would make the issue worse. But as a side note, the amount of space that System Restore takes up can be easily controlled. Same goes for the Recycle Bin.

Another thing - Run the scanning software in safe mode and/or follow instructions found here: http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/topic34773.html