# My hard drive keeps filling up... without me putting anything there **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 15, 2003, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-hard-drive-keeps-filling-up-without-me-putting-anything-there/188583 "2003-07-15T04:55:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2003, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-hard-drive-keeps-filling-up-without-me-putting-anything-there/188583/1 "2003-07-15T04:55:31Z")
So I delete about 600 megs of stuff, reboot my computer, and the space is not there anymore - I have 9 megs free. WTF? I must have more space than that. A virus scan failed to turn anything up. What should I do? ---
**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2003, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-hard-drive-keeps-filling-up-without-me-putting-anything-there/188583/2 "2003-07-15T04:57:12Z")
Did you empty your Recycle Bin (assuming a Windows OS)? ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2003, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-hard-drive-keeps-filling-up-without-me-putting-anything-there/188583/3 "2003-07-15T05:01:48Z")
Yes. ---
**Author:** ![Daizy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/46a35a/32.png) [@Daizy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Daizy)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2003, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-hard-drive-keeps-filling-up-without-me-putting-anything-there/188583/4 "2003-07-15T05:09:46Z")
Are you running windows ME or XP, where the restore points it creates may be chewing up space? Daizy ---
**Author:** ![Daizy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/46a35a/32.png) [@Daizy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Daizy)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2003, 5:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-hard-drive-keeps-filling-up-without-me-putting-anything-there/188583/5 "2003-07-15T05:13:40Z")
What exactly are you deleting? If it’s programs… I hope that you actually uninstalled, rather than deleted, through add/remove? Daizy ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2003, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-hard-drive-keeps-filling-up-without-me-putting-anything-there/188583/6 "2003-07-15T05:17:58Z")
No, 98. ---
**Author:** ![Daizy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/46a35a/32.png) [@Daizy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Daizy)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2003, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-hard-drive-keeps-filling-up-without-me-putting-anything-there/188583/7 "2003-07-15T05:21:11Z")
You know… any other poster would just put all their thoughts together in one freaking post. But not I! :rolleyes: Lastly (No really…) Have you done a scan disk lately? Any chance your hard drive has bad sectors? Daizy ---
**Author:** ![Berkut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a88e57/32.png) [@Berkut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Berkut)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2003, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-hard-drive-keeps-filling-up-without-me-putting-anything-there/188583/8 "2003-07-15T05:24:21Z")
Kinda guessing here, but maybe Windows is set to automatically manage your virtual memory, and it allocated most of your free space away? ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2003, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-hard-drive-keeps-filling-up-without-me-putting-anything-there/188583/9 "2003-07-15T05:38:02Z")
No, it was data files (some old media files) and temp files. ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2003, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-hard-drive-keeps-filling-up-without-me-putting-anything-there/188583/10 "2003-07-15T05:39:03Z")
Well, shut my mouth. I just looked again, and we’re back up to 2 gigs free. What keeps doing that?! ---
**Author:** ![Berkut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a88e57/32.png) [@Berkut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Berkut)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2003, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-hard-drive-keeps-filling-up-without-me-putting-anything-there/188583/11 "2003-07-15T05:46:34Z")
Like Daizy said, run scandisk. Your free space is likely being misreported. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2003, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-hard-drive-keeps-filling-up-without-me-putting-anything-there/188583/12 "2003-07-15T05:54:29Z")
You thought it would be _easy_ to root out Hamish’s goat porn? Think again! ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2003, 6:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-hard-drive-keeps-filling-up-without-me-putting-anything-there/188583/13 "2003-07-15T06:39:55Z")
I’ve tried to run Scandisk and it keeps saying something is writing to the disk, even though I close all the programs I can identify. ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2003, 6:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-hard-drive-keeps-filling-up-without-me-putting-anything-there/188583/14 "2003-07-15T06:42:36Z")
Also, the trash can seemed empty, but after I rebooted and used Disk Cleanup, there were another 100 megs in the trash can, which I deleted once again. ---
**Author:** ![Berkut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a88e57/32.png) [@Berkut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Berkut)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2003, 6:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-hard-drive-keeps-filling-up-without-me-putting-anything-there/188583/15 "2003-07-15T06:46:29Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by matt\_mcl \* > \*\*I’ve tried to run Scandisk and it keeps saying something is writing to the disk, even though I close all the programs I can identify. \*\* Boot into safe mode and run it from there. ---
**Author:** ![Daizy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/46a35a/32.png) [@Daizy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Daizy)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2003, 11:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-hard-drive-keeps-filling-up-without-me-putting-anything-there/188583/16 "2003-07-15T11:29:35Z")
As **Joey G** has said, do a scandisk from safe mode. When you do a ctrl/alt/delete… list for us what you have in the close programs dialogue box, after a fresh boot. Daizy ---
**Author:** ![handy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5a626/32.png) [@handy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handy)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2003, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-hard-drive-keeps-filling-up-without-me-putting-anything-there/188583/17 "2003-07-15T13:57:38Z")
Best thing to do in the future is search for large files & see where they are. Also, turn OFF the computer then turn it ON, don’t just reboot it because that is a ‘soft boot’ & you don’t want that. ---
**Author:** ![sailor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2003, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-hard-drive-keeps-filling-up-without-me-putting-anything-there/188583/18 "2003-07-15T14:17:09Z")
It seems pretty simple to me to use windows explorer and see exactly what is taking up the disk space. ---
**Author:** ![Headcoat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/6bbea6/32.png) [@Headcoat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Headcoat)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2003, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-hard-drive-keeps-filling-up-without-me-putting-anything-there/188583/19 "2003-07-15T16:10:47Z")
Use SequoiaView: [http://www.win.tue.nl/sequoiaview/](http://www.win.tue.nl/sequoiaview/) Absolutely amazing little program that gives you a visual representation of your hard drive’s contents. Its nice to see such a broad overview where I can immediately spot files I never knew existed which are needlessly taking up space. ---
**Author:** ![siberia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/siberia/32/9129_2.png) [@siberia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/siberia)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2003, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-hard-drive-keeps-filling-up-without-me-putting-anything-there/188583/20 "2003-07-15T18:01:25Z")
Could someone possibly be spying on you with monitoring software? That would fill up your disk with log files rather quickly as well as explain the constant disk-writes. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-hard-drive-keeps-filling-up-without-me-putting-anything-there/188583.md?page=2)