0MB Free Space : The More I Delete The Less Disk Space Made Available

Hello,

Can someone please, please, please help me.

I have a Windows 7 Pro machine, with 500GB and recently it has been decreasing in hard drive capacity to the point I had only a few GBs left, so I decided to get rid of some large old files - it turns out - the MORE I DELETE THE LESS SPACE IS ACTUALLY FREED UP!

As illogical as it may seem, I'm not on crack!

Clearly this must be due to some sort of virus since I happened to have carried out a full scan scan my system (just felt like doing it, not suspecting anything - I have a good habit of scanning every couple of months!) yesterday using AVAST and nothing turned up. However when I did a preboot scan two or three trojans came up which I deleted - only for this problem to come up.

What do I do?

I now have 0 bits of free space - none whatsoever on my C drive.

I neither have a backup copy or recover disk created because I was unable to create a HP Elitbook recovery disk due to some technical issues.

Any assistance would be kindly appreciated as I have some very important work to do and can't afford to waste days on end trying to sort this out - I might just throw it out the window on to my car!

Thank you once again :'(

 

i was about to say was you using a 3rd party software to delete large files as some have a tick box that also deletes that part of the hard drive as well.

and then you mention 2 or 3 trojans.

so was it 2 or 3. you need to be precise on this as it can make a difference.
did you note down the names of them. this is important as depending what sort it is it maybe fixable. some trojans are so nasty that a total clean and re install is the only thing to clear it.
how did you delete them. did you just right click and delete or let avast delete them or did it put them into quarantine.

firstly you need to run a full scan in safe mode but the damage could already be done as you think you have no space left. this is defo the trojan doing its nasty work.

just need to check something.
if you have some pictures in your picture folder could you check any one of them and see if its greyed out. if so i know which 1 trojan this is but not the other 2.

reboot computer and continously press F8 on bootup (or whichever F key takes you to safemode) as not sure what hp uses.

run a full system scan and report back.

 

Important Update:

I think I've found the culprit: BCWipe. I've never used this program(I bought the laptop from gumtree & have left most of the programs it came with because they seemed useful) but there's a folder in the C drive which is hidden and called: ῀BCWipe Del" ...I think it has the 'Del' part....

So here's what happened:

1. This folder had a file that was 69.4GB...
2. Everytime something was being deleted from browser cache, temp folders, Recyle Bin etc it was going to this folder....
3. When Recyle bin is emptied it was going to this folder...
4. I managed to delete this 69.4GB file BUT....
5. All the other mini files ( 20KBs<) & there were thousands upon thousands (>10K+) which were not more than 50MB could also be deleted via simple delete or shift+delete BUT...two things....first these mini files kept on increasing and more were flooding into this folder and I was playing cat and mouse trying to delete them to no avail (& at the same time my C drive is decreasing in available space as these files pile up!).
6. I tried to delete BCWipe.....it wouldn't let me...an error
7. Used RevoUninstaller to remove this program and that folder "BCWipe..." dissapeared! Horroa!

I looked at my AVAST log and found the following 4 virus/trojans deleted from last scan during bootup (were deleted by Avast)

1. Win32-Delf-MBA [Trj]
2. Win32LDelf-MBA [Trj]
3. PUP Win32-gen [PUP]
4. PUPL Win32LPUP-gen[PUP]

So all in all people a happy ending I now have Malwarebytes installed, scheduled weekly scans, I don't have this nasty folder filling my C drive up with useless files and I'm happy

Moral of the story, if you buy a laptop from ebay/gumtree make sure you do a full scan or remove programs you don't need!

Any thoughts, insights people?

Thank you once again for your assistance, greatly appreciate your time.

 

Chances are you are already sunk. Cleanup is the next process to look into. There have been a lot of successful trojans of late. Somewhere in the process you will need a recovery/install disk. Sometimes you can order a boot cd from the vendor, but you'd have to talk to them to see if they will sell you one. If you want to recover the data then you'd probably have to slave the drive also, but I wouldn't be careful of your autoplay features so you don't reinfect. Your files may also be contaminated also so just be mindful of funny business on the processes and network...

edit: lol you were writing stuff up. You have been infected, antivirus just tells you someone was sloppy with their work. You need to reformat at some point. good luck... and change all passwords associated as keyloggers were most likely active.

 

I think your right, I'm doing a full malwarebytes scan now and so far it says Objects Detected: 1 .....and the scan isn't finished.....I think you might be right I might have sunk...

Does antivirus not get rid of it? And what do you mean I'm making stuff up ?

 

^^he could be right.
trojans are like octapus. once they grab you then they have 7 other tenticles to grab onto other things so spread even more. you might have cleared one but its already infected something else.

join the avast forum NOW > http://forum.avast.com/index.php
and post what youve posted here as they are the experts.
tbh i think a clean install might be the only option so you lose everything thats on your drive. if you save some stuff to an external drive so you can put it back on later then that could be infected as well.

 

lol, I didn't mean making stuff up.. I meant writing stuff up... as a positive comment of documentation.
Even if you are doomed as of right now don't just give up. Bail the water out of your sinking ship and save what you can. Antivirus does not get rid of trojans... much less viruses... that's a foolish marketing ploy. It does what it thinks will get rid of it and that is all... guess you don't read the EULA the software came with. No guarantees, just a warm and fuzzy for you.
Experts? well if they give you a warm and fuzzy then they are doing their job. If you are an expert you will do a clean install on a clean network... assuming the other computers on your LAN haven't been destroyed by you.

 

use windirstat portable, it will show you what is eating up all your space.

WinDirStat Portable | PortableApps.com - Portable software for USB, portable and cloud drives

 

I'd just reinstall and call it quits. Once you get persistent virus infections who knows what all has been done to the system.

 

If you buy a laptop from gumtree/ebay, my personal advice would be to do a clean OS install and full format of the thing so you can set it up as you desire (this method also avoids hassle with leftover files from the previous user and their past activities).

 

also, make sure you run some rootkit cleaner program as well. some viruses/trojans can't be deleted by anti-virus programs. here is Blacklight by F-Secure.