Windows folder maxed out.

[Jayce]

My hard drive claims to be 100% full, 0mb free. It boots up insanely slow. It's running XP Pro.

When I go into the Windows folder and select all, including hidden files, then right click and hit properties - the size is 2.4gb. Normal.

When I right click on the Windows folder itself and go to properties, it comes back as 65gb. It's a 70gb hard drive...

 

[carnageX]

Well, uninstall some programs and see if that frees up any space. Have a lot of games on there? Tried clearing out all of your temps? Free up some space, then install CCleaner, and clean out your temp files with that.

 

[KSoD]

Some one just had this issue. I think they ended up reinstalling.

 

[mikee]

some ancient virus did that to me. I don't know if its still floating around though but it copied a simple file over and over in the windows folder until the disk was full then hid the files

 

[C0RR0SIVE]

At our vocational school we have found some rather old virus' on systems that will copy files over and over and over till the drive is nearly full, we haven't seen any serious harm from it, but none of our scanners would pick it up, took us two weeks to find the random "services" that caused the drives to fill up. But yea, do a disk cleanup, clear out some room, and run some online scans along with AVG and the such...

 

[Schecters]

I have heard a few times that if too many files are in the root folder of the drive, it will lock you out saying that it is full. Do you have a lot of files/folders in the root folder of your windows partition?

 

[MrCoffee]

Hmm, so files in the windows folder are only 2.4gb but the folder takes up stacks more... Virus replicating a file in ADS perhaps?
Checkout ADS Spy (also availiable as a misc tool in hijackthis).

If its not stuff in ADS then I don't know. Perhaps run ccleaner, chkdisk and a defrag.

 

[helix2301]

That sounds like a virus issue make sure your virus protection is up to date then run full system scan in safe mode.

 

[wicked23]

I am havin that same issue. With the same folder. Tommorrow if time allows it i am gonna try a repair install, i will post if it works.

 

[MrCoffee]

well I just checked, all the files in my windows folder come to exactly 5,109,025,455 bytes and the folder itself is exactly.. 5,109,025,479 bytes.
So i'd say either you have some hidden stuff that you've not aware of, or virus.

To eliminate the hidden stuff option:

windows explorer > tools > folder options > view tab

then uncheck "Hide protected operating system files (recommended)"

and select the option "show hidden files and folders"

then click the apply to all folders button.