[Stephane]

I tried defragmenting (in safe mode) my C drive (a few times) and I am left
with 21% still fragmented.
The report showed that files c:windows/0 had over 800 files that could not
be defragmented and file c:windows/4 had over 400 files

When I rebooted, I was warned that I was critically low on space. My "C"
partition is 16 Gig and it only contains Windows XP sp2 and some safety
software such as antivirus, antispyware and firewall.

When I look in Explorer, I find the following strange files:
C:WINDOWS/0 1 375 440 System file
C:WINDOWS/4 1 375 440 System file
C:WINDOWS/6 1 375 440 System file
C:WINDOWS/8 1 375 440 System file
C:WINDOWS/9 1 375 440 System file

I also had this critically low space problem a few months ago and the
problem was the System Volume Information that was full due to the System
Restore not functioning. But this is not the case now.

I am absolutely, positively certain I do not have any virus or spyware.
I am running continuously Norton antivirus, Ad-Aware, Microsoft Antispyware,
SpySweeper and ZoneLab and do a full scan of ALL drives every night..... I am
a little fanatic, but absolutely sure not is gonna get in my machine!

I tried doing an Error checking on the drive with no difference.
I tried deleting all TMP and LOG files with no difference.
I even tried deleting the mysterious files but Windows says it cannot be done because they are system files in use???

OK, I'm open to any constructive suggestion now.

Stephane

[Advertisements]

Right click your desktop, click properties. Click the Screen Saver tab, click Power, click the Hibernate Tab, and make sure Hibernation is turned off. Next go to "My Computer" and right click your hard drive (usually C:\) and click properties. Uncheck the box next to "Allow indexing...". Next click the "Disk Cleanup" button. When it is finished with it's scan place checks in all the boxes you see fit, especially the Compress old files option. Click ok and let it delete files and compress files. Also go to control panel, add/remove programs, and uninstall everything you don't need. This will all help recover hard drive space. One more thing, go to control panel, system, click the system restore tab, and check the box next to disable sys restore. Click allow, now uncheck the box and click allow and click ok, this will clear out your restore folder and create one new restore point. You can also specify the amount of hd space for it to use.

-=jonnyrotten=-

[-=jonnyrotten=-]

Right click your desktop, click properties. Click the Screen Saver tab, click Power, click the Hibernate Tab, and make sure Hibernation is turned off. Next go to "My Computer" and right click your hard drive (usually C:\) and click properties. Uncheck the box next to "Allow indexing...". Next click the "Disk Cleanup" button. When it is finished with it's scan place checks in all the boxes you see fit, especially the Compress old files option. Click ok and let it delete files and compress files. Also go to control panel, add/remove programs, and uninstall everything you don't need. This will all help recover hard drive space. One more thing, go to control panel, system, click the system restore tab, and check the box next to disable sys restore. Click allow, now uncheck the box and click allow and click ok, this will clear out your restore folder and create one new restore point. You can also specify the amount of hd space for it to use.

-=jonnyrotten=-

[Stephane]

I cannot make any changes to hibernate because it says I don't have enough free space on the disk, but I don't think It ever was turned on;
I didn't know about indexing, but it sure worked a lot. However, it didn't gain me any free space + it could not touch my mysterious files;
The uninstall option does not really apply because all I have on that 16 Gig partition is Windows and my anti-everything programs. All other programs are on another partition;
As far as System Restore is concerned, it has never worked. Anytime I try to access it, it tells me that it is not able to protect my computer. Please restart and run SR again. Been like that since I reformated back in September, so I have given-up. But as far as I know, it stores it's information in the Volume information folder, which in my case only has a tracking log of 20K.

I have that strange feeling that defrag has left me those strange files as sort of temp log, but I can't figure out why I can't delete them.

Steph.

[-=jonnyrotten=-]

I hope someone knows about this, because I can't figure it out, I've never seen files like that before I'll be on the lookout. Good Luck!

-=jonnyrotten=-

[VeedeeBee]

Help I have the same-ish problem, I have a 40GB drive partitioned with 4.7 GB for Windows XP and another 6 partitions of various sizes for other files.

Recently I was running on between 934 to 850 MB free space and keeping it clean with Webroot Washer,CC Cleaner, Ad-Aware and Spybot along with 2 AV programmes AVG 7.0 and another commercial one.

In the past week my memory on the c: drive has gone down to as low as 0.67MB and I've noticed the following file on my system

WindowsXP-SP2-x86fre-USA-2180.psf.blob at 116MB on my system, it seems to be a Microsoft file but at one point I had two versions of it at 112MB as a temp file on my system. When I delete it it just loads itself on again...very annoying. I have turn off Auto upgrade so this is triply annoying.

I found the forum and tried to do smokey's tweaks but found that the option for turning off indexing is not on my c:drive when I go to "properties", Hibernation is not ticked and so I am at a loss as to what is happening. Any ideas

[Stephane]

I am still working on debugging this one on the Windows XP newsgroup.
Not that I am trying to lure anyone away, but it is getting pretty extensive.
Feel free to have a look.
http://www.microsoft...c4ff9&p=1&ntf=1

[admin]

WindowsXP-SP2-x86fre-USA-2180.psf.blob at 116MB

This is just the uninstall info for Service Pack 2.

[admin]

Stephane, do you want to delete these folders, or do you want to know what they're for first?

[Retired Tech]

TuneUp 2004

Try the trial version of tune up 2004, it has a registry cleaner and a registry cleaner. Run the 1 click maintenance then the registry cleaner then the registry defrag, this will then need reboot

[VeedeeBee]

Keith,

Will this help me as I already use CCleaner, Webroot washer and a one click windows cleaner ?

I'm not sure whether a 4th cleaner will work.

Have in the past cleared all logs (Ad-aware, ZoneAlarm, Washer,etc.) and kept to one restore point. Also have not installed SP2 (as I have some old programs that don't work otherwise)


However advice is appreciated and will look into Tuneup when I get home

Thanks

[Retired Tech]

It has a cleaner but instead of saying cleaner twice, I meant to say about the registry defrag which repairs the structure, and the 1 click maintenance which should find and repair any problems, hopefully to a point where the Windows defrag will work again. You can also visit visit Major Geeks to get diskeeper lite, which may also help, if it does not get the Windows defrag working, at least it will allow you to defrag the drive, tuneup is fully functional for a month

[Stephane]

Stephane, do you want to delete these folders, or do you want to know what they're for first?

Finding what these files do would be a great thing, however as much as I tried, I am unable to delete them because they come up as system files, and hidden just to complicate things.

I can't possibly imagine that a program of any kind could delete these files as I have already tried from the command shell (sort of DOS) in safe mode, which is even closer to the root than any software can get at.

You can see the results of my attemps as I was guided by some great experts at:
http://pages.videotr...eph1/first_page

[Retired Tech]

MoveOnBoot

This is supposed to let you remove anything, have you tried running msconfig and disabling them in start up

[Stephane]

I can't desable those files because they are considered system files and not program files.

Even from msconfig, I cannot find out what specific fonction they are part of, other than system files, and I tried deleting, renaming or changing their attributes from safe mode with only the logical disk manager service active and everything else off.

So, I don't know what they are, I don't know what they're for, I don't know what fonction uses them and I can't do anything to them.

[admin]

I can't desable those files because they are considered system files and not program files.

Have you tried removing them from the command line using the Recovery Console?