JonathanG

thanks very much for the key to the mystery - I often interrupt the wipe process, which is final step in cleaning, but never before noticed these strange files, but then again, I don't spend much time in the root level of C - thanks!

I just noticed on root level of "C", 6 ('six) ZZZ folders, containing thousands of ZZZ files and ZZZ zip files (by "ZZZ" I mean various configurations of Z, such as ZZZ_ZZZZ_ZZZ.zip, while folder names look just like Norton's back-up folders with a bunch of ZZZ's at end of each). Norton, as usual, no help whatsoever. According to Google, the culprit is CCleaner's WIPE FREE SPACE, which I have used for many years without any problems, until now. So, first I uninstalled, preventively, CCleaner, and secondly hence this new topic to get feed-back on issue. Thanks!