Sudden Disk Fill Up

Hello,I'm a complete novice,so I hope someone can help me.While running CCleaner today,my HDD suddenly filled nearly all the way up,adding gigs of ??? I'm baffled.Thanx,Brad

Hello,I'm a complete novice,so I hope someone can help me.While running CCleaner today,my HDD suddenly filled nearly all the way up,adding gigs of ??? I'm baffled.Thanx,Brad

Hi Brad3152,

This is baffling.Maybe Murphy"s law has struck and you are the victim.

I haven't heard any other reports like this.

Since you say you are a complete novice,I am going to try to simplify as much as I can.

First thing you need to do is find out if your disk has filled with one big file or many copies of the same file.We are going to use the Disk Defragmenter program to help.We are just going to Analyze.

Defragmenting now would be a waste of time.You can use "Defraggler" program also to do the same thing.

Do the following.Left click Start.Right click on MY COMPUTER,LEFT click on MANAGE.

On the left LEFT click on Disk Defragmenter.Now LEFT click on ANALYZE.This may take awhile.

When it finishes Analyzing a box will appear.LEFT Click on View Report.

LEFT Click Save As and save it on your Desktop..(If using Defraggler RIGHT click on the report screen and Left click on save list to text file.)

You can scroll down the Most fragmented files report looking for a file with many segments and many MB or Gigs.This way you find the monster file.Write down its name and path.DO NOT DELETE ANY FILES until you communicate with us.If you created many copies of a small file, we will have to deal with that differently.

Cut and paste that report and send it in your reply.If it too long send it as an attachment or a .zip file.

Second thing is to answer some questions.

Did you run CCleaner with no other programs running?

Did you have any problems downloading CCleaner?

Did you run the Cleaner function only?

Did you change any options?

What Browsers, Security programs do you use?

Enough for now.We will be looking for your reply.

Good Luck,

:) davey

Hi Brad3152,

This is baffling.Maybe Murphy"s law has struck and you are the victim.

I haven't heard any other reports like this.

Since you say you are a complete novice,I am going to try to simplify as much as I can.

First thing you need to do is find out if your disk has filled with one big file or many copies of the same file.We are going to use the Disk Defragmenter program to help.We are just going to Analyze.

Defragmenting now would be a waste of time.You can use "Defraggler" program also to do the same thing.

Do the following.Left click Start.Right click on MY COMPUTER,LEFT click on MANAGE.

On the left LEFT click on Disk Defragmenter.Now LEFT click on ANALYZE.This may take awhile.

When it finishes Analyzing a box will appear.LEFT Click on View Report.

LEFT Click Save As and save it on your Desktop..(If using Defraggler RIGHT click on the report screen and Left click on save list to text file.)

You can scroll down the Most fragmented files report looking for a file with many segments and many MB or Gigs.This way you find the monster file.Write down its name and path.DO NOT DELETE ANY FILES until you communicate with us.If you created many copies of a small file, we will have to deal with that differently.

Cut and paste that report and send it in your reply.If it too long send it as an attachment or a .zip file.

Second thing is to answer some questions.

Did you run CCleaner with no other programs running?

Did you have any problems downloading CCleaner?

Did you run the Cleaner function only?

Did you change any options?

What Browsers, Security programs do you use?

Enough for now.We will be looking for your reply.

Good Luck,

:) davey

I ran my defrag program but it did not change a thing.I should note,I also run another disk cleanup program called Window Washer,and it causes the same rapid disk fill up problem.I have around 80 gigs of music,movies,and photos,zip files etc. saved in a folder I named 'Temp Downloads' on my C drive.When I did an advanced search for temp files,it showed that file,plus thousands of previously deleted files,so it appears these "deleted files" are somehow being saved?My HDD is 250 gigs,so there is supposedly plenty of space left,yet it keeps filling up when I run CC.As I say,I'm truly baffled.I hope someone can help.Thank you,Brad

Disk washers will (generally) write large files full of zeroes on your disk until the disk is full, then delete these files and file name entries. That's how a disk is washed. If the program is not allowed to complete it might leave these files on the disk, using up a great deal of space.

CC does not work like this (it doesn't wash a disk). You haven't supplied much info, but if you're using secure deletion then CC will create a temp file of zeroes to overwrite your files. I haven't seen one greater than 4k though, and this certainly won't fill your disk. Maybe if you have very large files, as I guess you have with movies, and you're doing something silly like specifying 35 pass overwrite, then CC might allocate larger temp files to do it's work. This is all an educated guess as I don't really know how CC works, and I don't have huge files or use 35 pass overwrites.

I have no idea why your previously deleted files are ending up in your temp folder, but it doesn't sound like CC's work. What creation/modified date do they have, and does this correspond to a CC or WW run, or neither?

Run a controlled test. Keep off your pc for a while, then run CC, search your disk for files created today, and order by time. What has CC created?

I ran my defrag program but it did not change a thing.I should note,I also run another disk cleanup program called Window Washer,and it causes the same rapid disk fill up problem.I have around 80 gigs of music,movies,and photos,zip files etc. saved in a folder I named 'Temp Downloads' on my C drive.When I did an advanced search for temp files,it showed that file,plus thousands of previously deleted files,so it appears these "deleted files" are somehow being saved?My HDD is 250 gigs,so there is supposedly plenty of space left,yet it keeps filling up when I run CC.As I say,I'm truly baffled.I hope someone can help.Thank you,Brad

Hi Brad3152,

From the info in this post,I advise you to change the name of your folder "Temp Downloads" to something else i.e. " BradsTemp Downloads" . "Temp" is one of those "holy" words that can sometimes get you in trouble.Wildcards can sometimes cause problems if PC users use "holy" words like "Temp","Recent", or "Temporary" etc. in their file names.

I was telling you to use Defragmenter program only to Analyze and get a Report.

I advised against doing a "Defrag" itself because you may get into more problems since you may not have any space left to do such a thing.

DO NOT run any more maintenance programs until this problem is resolved.Otherwise they will be unable to complete their task and possibly just leave you with more of a mess.

Answer the questions I posed in my earlier reply. This is to "unbaffle" the problem you are having?

Perhaps you have a Directory Print program or something similar.You need to know if 1 "HUGE" file is being created or THOUSANDS of small files.

If thousands of small "temp" files already exist on your Hard Drive, we need to figure out how to delete them.It only takes one bad program to get into a loop and this can occur.We also need to figure out how they got there, if possible. A "virus" program can do the same thing.

I also advise not running Window Washer or CCleaner or any other maintenance programs at the same time.

MAINTENANCE type programs must be run 1 at a time or I guarantee problems.

You have stated twice " I hope someone can help". My intention is to help! Nobody can help you if you do not answer their questions and do what they ask you to do.See my previous reply and follow it.

:) davey

Do you have any type of an Undelete utility or file recovery app? Some undelete apps I've noticed will backup any+all files that are deleted by the user or another program.