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leftisthominid
Contributor III
Message 1 of 16

Losing a bit of free space on HDD day by day... Is this related to daily full scans?

I have noticed over the course of the last few days that I slowly losing some HDD space. A few days ago I had 183 GB free on my main drive, then I had 182 a couple days ago. Yesterday I had 181, today I also have 181, but I went from 181.8 to 181.6 somehow.

I've been running CCCleaner.

I had a virus scare in March, so I've been doing daily McAfee full virus scans as well as frequent Malwarebytes scans since. I do daily updates on McAfee. I do not know what it going on. Is this minor hdd loss due to doing frequent virus scans?

I've heard that Window 7 does often make shadow copies of system files. Does McAfee trigger the creation of these?

15 Replies
exbrit
MVP
MVP
Message 2 of 16

Re: Losing a bit of free space on HDD day by day... Is this related to daily full scans?

It could be that logs are mounting up, however they are auto-cleared after 30 days, or do you have anything that auto backs-up stuff?   Most likely it is temporary files which you can delete manually.

Go to Start/Run and type in temp and click OK or the Enter key.

When that screen appears go to Edit > Select All

Then click Shift/Delete simultaneously.

OK any prompts.  Not all will go, but most will.

Repeat the exercise typing in %temp% this time.

exbrit
MVP
MVP
Message 3 of 16

Re: Losing a bit of free space on HDD day by day... Is this related to daily full scans?

By the way, if you are concerned it could be some sort of malware post a Hijackthis log on one of the specilaist forums that deal with them...all listed near the bottom of this document:  https://community.mcafee.com/docs/DOC-2168

They might be able to give you some more pointers.

Message was edited by: Ex_Brit on 22/04/12 7:52:48 EDT AM
leftisthominid
Contributor III
Message 4 of 16

Re: Losing a bit of free space on HDD day by day... Is this related to daily full scans?

So I ran a disk cleanup and cleared out a lot of service back up files, ran some Spybot immunizations as well as did a scan, ran CCleaner several times. At night I got back 183.41 after a final CCleaner, when I started up again right now I got it down to 183.53 (computer recalculated free space?). Right now since it built up some temp files again I am at 183.51.

Spybot, Malwarebytes, and McAfee all say I am clean. I will do another scan when I got in the shower and see if the space changes afterwards

leftisthominid
Contributor III
Message 5 of 16

Re: Losing a bit of free space on HDD day by day... Is this related to daily full scans?

deleted

exbrit
MVP
MVP
Message 6 of 16

Re: Losing a bit of free space on HDD day by day... Is this related to daily full scans?

We aren't qualified to tell you what that log means, please post it as instructed earlier.

Message was edited by: Ex_Brit on 22/04/12 10:06:22 EDT PM
leftisthominid
Contributor III
Message 7 of 16

Re: Losing a bit of free space on HDD day by day... Is this related to daily full scans?

I've got it verified at Techsupportforum that it is not malware.

I lose some space after each virus scan, sometimes clearing shadow copies in disc cleanup and running CCleaner gets me back to where I should be, other times it does not.

For example, yesterday I was at 188.3-ish, after a few scans I fell to 188.08-ish, and I've been stuck in that range since.

exbrit
MVP
MVP
Message 8 of 16

Re: Losing a bit of free space on HDD day by day... Is this related to daily full scans?

You could try clearing your Quarantined files - if any.

First double-click the taskbar icon to open SecurityCenter

Click Navigation (top right)

Click General Settings & Alerts (left)

Click Access Protection to expand that section

Uncheck Access Protection and click Apply

Leave SecurityCenter open on your desktop because you should re-enable Access Protection after the following steps.

Go to C:\ProgramData\McAfee\VirusScan\Quarantine and click Edit/Select All

Click Shift and Delete simultaneously and the folder should empty.

Take care to delete only the contents of that folder, not the folder itself.

Re-enable Access Protection as mentioned above and click Apply and then exit SecurityCenter.

Those instructions are for Vista/Windows 7. 

For XP the folder is found at:  C:\Documents & Settings\All Users\Application Data\McAfee\Virusscan

leftisthominid
Contributor III
Message 9 of 16

Re: Losing a bit of free space on HDD day by day... Is this related to daily full scans?

I do not have any quarantined files.

I think McAfee and Malwarebytes are just saving log files somewhere and there are not being deleted. Or maybe the daily McAfee updates are that big to make up the ~250mb I am looking for?

exbrit
MVP
MVP
Message 10 of 16

Re: Losing a bit of free space on HDD day by day... Is this related to daily full scans?

They all save logs but I do know that McAfee's self-destruct at 30-days so should remain within reason.

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