Low Disc Space

[blas]

This started about a week ago, and has popped up once per day, but today it has happened 3 times.

In the right-hand corner, a bubble pops up and warns me that I'm running low on disc space, and to delete old files to make room. So I do. I delete everything the computer recommends. It asks me "permanently delete"? and I say yes, so I figured that meant permanently delete, right?

Most of the time, after a short while, it says I've freed up so much room and everything is fine. Except today, within a half hour, I was running low on space again, and deleting the same files again. And again.

I found it weird enough that it started happening daily, now multiple times a day. What's going on?

[lordlundar]

assuming a piece of software isn't doing it, you have a virus in your system. Get it checked out and cleaned (software side) by a tech.

[Ironclad Alibi]

Just to be sure, empty the Recycle Bin yourself.

[blas]

Where is the recycle bin and how do you remove everything on an old Vista?

[Ironclad Alibi]

Usually, the recycle bin is the trash can icon on the desktop. Double click, or right click, on the icon and you should see an option to empty it.

If it is not on the desktop, open either My Computer or Windows Explorer and the Recycle bin will be at the bottom of the folders list. Double click, or right click, on Recycle Bin and you should see an option to empty it.

[Der Cute]

And defrag it after you've cleaned it out
RunCCleaner first.
Turn off browsers
do a virus scan
if no, defrag.

[Moon]

Virus scan, scan with Spybot Search & Destroy, possibly MalwareBytes too.

When you first boot-up (or at least after you close all running programs), Hit Ctrl-Alt-Del, click on "Task Manager", then Processes. Look for anything that has your username next to it. Google anything unfamiliar. You have something running that is clogging up the works. It could be simply a malfunctioning program, or it could be something malicious.

Of course, I'm assuming you've already tried rebooting.

[TheSHAD0W]

Sometimes a disk full message comes up because... the disk is full.

http://windirstat.info/

This tool will help you figure out where most of your disk space is going.

[blas]

Emptied recycle bin and deleted all temp files (as suggested by a coworker). I didn't realize that every video I watch or song I listen to goes into a temp file and takes up space.

Computer has only been on for an hour so far, but no warning yet. That's a good thing, I think. The past few days, I got that warning within the first hour.

[Der Cute]

When you run CCleaner it dumps temp files.
yes, tempfiles are THICK and take up a lot of crap.

Get in the habit of running CCleaner about once a month. You can choose which cookies to keep (like www.customerssuck.com) so you dont have to log in. But you need to clean temp files and old cookies. It also runs a check on the registry to see if there are any issues to clean up in there.

This is a very good piece of software to have. Trust me.

It's free!!