Corrupt Free Space on Hard Drive?

[Code Doc]

This may be a tough one for you, but perhaps not. My Anti-Virus blocker could not update its database because it said I was out of hard disk space. Sure enough, I checked with Explorer and it showed less than 1 Gb available. In shock, I transferred about 4 Gb of assorted documents to backup drive D and that allowed virus blocker to do its update. However, it made no sense to me that about 20 Gb of mass space had vanished into thin air.

So, I started uninstalling out-of-date applications and cleaned out another 0.5 Gb. Still no improvement, and that lack of space blocked the ability for Microsoft's defragger to defragment the drive. You need 15% free.

In desperation, I deleted an App directory that the Microsoft support staff had backed up and renamed when helping me eradicate a virus last month. It was a copy of my scanner's software. Windows fought the deletion because the scanner's .Exe was running in the background, and I had to use Task Manager to end it. Finally, when I was able to delete that directory (only about 15 Mb in size), suddenly Explorer showed 23 Gb free. Gasp!

How on earth did the presence of that directory destroy the free disk space allocation measure?

Needless to say I defragged after that and things seem faster and smoother as well (as expected). Please advise what happened here as best as you can.

[gep13]

Hey,

That is a wierd one!! Would have been interesting to see exactly how much that directory was holding onto.

An application I normally always install on my machines is windirstat:

http://windirstat.info/

It calculates all the hard drive space currently being used, and then presents it in a TreeMap that you can use to identity where everything is allocated.

Gary

[Code Doc]

Hey,

That is a wierd one!! Would have been interesting to see exactly how much that directory was holding onto.

An application I normally always install on my machines is windirstat:

http://windirstat.info/

It calculates all the hard drive space currently being used, and then presents it in a TreeMap that you can use to identity where everything is allocated.

Gary

Gary, that might have worked, and I'll try to get it on board. Here's another thing interesting. You know how the defragger shows all the disk free space in white and the other files on disk in various colors (RGB)?

Well, when the defragger said I only had 4.6 Gb free, there was practically no white space anywhere. Then when I knocked out that last small App directory that Microsoft created during Easy Access, there was white space everywhere.

[Siddharth Rout]

Finally, when I was able to delete that directory (only about 15 Mb in size), suddenly Explorer showed 23 Gb free. Gasp!

Since you already deleted the folder, I will not be able to confirm it but I think you were hit by a trojan. I cannot recollect the name. The antivirus usually is not able to detect it. The best way to check for it's presense is

Go to that folder and go to Tools, Folder Options, and click the View tab. Select/Check the option to Show hidden files and folders. Click Ok and close that folder.

Open that folder once again and go to Tools, Folder Options, and click the View tab. If the "Show hidden files and folders" is unchecked then that confirms the presence of the trojan....

BTW, could you check the above with any other folder for me?

[Nightwalker83]

Make sure you don't have any setup programs taking up space from Windows Update, etc. I had a similar problem with the decrease in hard drive space and tried everything I knew of to solve the problem. However, it didn't work then I found out that Windows keeps a backup of the setup file on the computer. So every time I did a Windows Update the setup file would be on my computer afterward.

[gep13]

@Nightwalker83 the only problem with doing this, is if you ever needed to uninstall a windows update, you wouldn't be able to. Just something to think about.

@koolsid, a trojan eh, can't say I have seen anything like that.

[Nightwalker83]

@Nightwalker83 the only problem with doing this, is if you ever needed to uninstall a windows update, you wouldn't be able to. Just something to think about.

He could probably burn the updates to a disk to save hard drive space.

[Code Doc]

Since you already deleted the folder, I will not be able to confirm it but I think you were hit by a trojan. I cannot recollect the name. The antivirus usually is not able to detect it. The best way to check for it's presense is

Go to that folder and go to Tools, Folder Options, and click the View tab. Select/Check the option to Show hidden files and folders. Click Ok and close that folder.

Open that folder once again and go to Tools, Folder Options, and click the View tab. If the "Show hidden files and folders" is unchecked then that confirms the presence of the trojan....

BTW, could you check the above with any other folder for me?

I checked several folders and the Select/Check option remained intact, I always have it set for showing hidden files.

It is possible that some small particle of the virus still remains somewhere on my computer. This now-famous anti-virus virus (Security Center 2010) is one of the most powerful that exists. It actually blocked out the ability to download Microsoft's own Safety.Live.Com. Everytime I try, I get a corrupt memory message. Nobody can fix that--not even Microsoft. I've tried every anti-virius software tool that there is to fix it, and it remains. Many users have given up and reinstalled Windows after a low-level format of the boot drive.

While Microsoft and I (using Easy Access) were working on the eradication, several attempts were being made by the criminals to break into my system again and replant the virus. So, they had a record of a successful implant and were trying to follow up on it in order to spread the cancer. Once again, I must stress that this virus already has defeated, McAfee, Norton, AVG, Viper, Windows Defender, and Norman MalWare. Thousands of computers worldwide have been infected.

I installed Zone Alarm firewall package that detects break ins and is a bit stronger than anti-virus software because it blocks the door before the virus can get in. While working on the eradication, I received notification from Grisoft (AVG Anti-virus) that they had updated their database to add protection against the new Securiy Center 2010 virus. I ran that scan and it knocked out 20 infected files that both of Microsoft's 3rd party scanners had missed.

However, that was still not all of them. I installed SpyBot Search and Destroy, a package that is used by government agencies in Washington. SpyBot's scan found another dozen or so more additional infections. I then concluded that this virus knows the order in which the typical virus scanners search for viruses and plants itself as far away as possible. It then constantly monitors whether a virus scan has started. When it detects that, it looks for an area on the hard drive that has already been scanned and replants itself. Then when it is finally "erased" by the anti-virus software, it has already taken up root elsewhere. When the coast is clear, it executes again and continues its mischief.

The fact that it has over 20 major elements of foul play connected to it makes it even more powerful because no other virus anyone knows about has ever been able to do all that. I would estimate that several machine language programmers and business professionals got their heads together and conspired to create this beast. They could be located about anywhere in the world in several different countries. Microsoft probably does not want to advertise it and all they can do is try to help the wounded. So far, they have given me about 5 hours of support in 3 different sessions and a 4th one may be necessary.

As I said earlier, I believe there is still some worm on my system because I cannot download Safety.Live.Com onto my computer. It is likely blocked by something that the virus did to my system's memory, separate from the hard drive. Microsoft has yet to figure out how that happened or was accomplished, but look at it this way--the virus blocked out several other downloads of anti-virus tools that we eventually got working. However, these crooks took extreme measures to block out Microsoft and nobody can solve that one yet.

[gep13]

He could probably burn the updates to a disk to save hard drive space.

This would be one solution, yes, not something I would want to have to do myself, but certainly feasible.

Gary

[gep13]

@Code Doc, I personally use a combination of virus/malware/spyware packages, as I have never found one package that can deal with all threats. These are:

ZoneAlarm
AVG Free Edition
MalwareBytes
SpyBot Search and Destroy
Spyware Blaster

These, in combination with a Internet Gateway Server that I used called ClarkConnect has served me well for a long period of time.

As for your current situation, if it were me, I would personally not trust my computer again, and it sounds like it has been quite badly infected. I would be rebuilding my computer from the ground up. Just my opinion though.

Gary

[Code Doc]

Gary said, "As for your current situation, if it were me, I would personally not trust my computer again, and it sounds like it has been quite badly infected. I would be rebuilding my computer from the ground up."
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But, I just got through doing that last year when a virus wiped out the keyboard.

I now use all the software that you listed in your post. Simple question:

Can a virus today actually corrupt and/or contaminate (1) RAM and (2) Eproms or cache memory on the motherboard in addition to disk drive contamination?

[Siddharth Rout]

Can a virus today actually corrupt and/or contaminate (1) RAM and (2) Eproms or cache memory on the motherboard in addition to disk drive contamination?

Directly - NO, but indirectly yes, such as repetitively carrying out same task over and over again which may cause some parts such as hard disk some amount of corruption. Same goes for Audio Card, Video Card, Ram etc...

[gep13]

But, I just got through doing that last year when a virus wiped out the keyboard.

I normally do this at least once a year as part of a general routine. All my data is backed up elsewhere, so really the only information on the boot partition is the OS and the applications that I use, which I have a list of. I find that after a while, things inevitably start to slow down, and it gets to the point that I have installed stuff that I don't use, etc, etc, so I take the opportunity to do a fresh installation.