having problems with hard drive, it eating up space

[Pierce]

my problem started yesterday. Out of nowhere I ran out of space on my c drive, so I then deleted files but every time I would go on a web page, my hard drive again would take up space

i deleted the cache from firefox and nothing happened. I think i deleted the temp files right and nothing happened.

Every now and then after some resets Ill get like 40 gb of space back for some reason, but that space dissapears after some clicks online. This has happed to me like 5 times now out of like 15 resets where I got 40-50gb of space after a reset.

I ran avg and got some viruses and deleted it and nothing happened. One thing though the problem DOES NOT occur in safe mode, just in regular mode

also ive been getting some ghost looking folders on c drive. never seen these folders before, they arent the color of the normal folder and they are a lighter yellow

os is vista 64

any help? thanks

 

[Blain]

Here's my 2¢

* Use PureRA and Ccleaner to free up some storage space.
* Adjust the properties of your recycle bin down to 1-2%.
* Adjust your System Restore disk space usage down to 1-2%.
* Turn off system restore for your non-C drives/partitions.
* After you've cleared up some space do a defrag & optimize with Auslogics Disk Defrag.

 

[razel]

windirstat will comprehensively and quickly map out what's on the drive letting you know where your space is going. It's an old program, if anyone knows of any newer one that's as simple and comparable, please let us know. windirstat can run from within it's own folder and doesn't need an install.