Topic: My Wx PC is being gobbled up [RESOLVED]

[Jstx]

Well, well. Just checked the PC and free space is still sitting at 162GB on C:, which is exactly where it was when I went to bed last night! Amazing. Pretty much points the finger at Acronis.

John, I will take a look today at your Macrium Reflect recommendation. I have a great backup app (SuperDuper!) on my iMac. It makes a fully bootable mirror image incremental backup every night. Been using it for years with zero problems. Anything like that for the PC (not image files, just mirror image)?

Thanks again to all for your help and suggestions. Still have more recovery to do but am now a heck of a lot better off than before.

Good news indeed, unless it's something that doesn't run on weekends   .

But if your 2Terabyte drive is down to just 162GB of free space, you have some very serious pruning and/or offloading to do ASAP. 

[ConligWX]

So are you backing up to you can drive then if this was filing up with data? Best policy is backup to an external.drive, just in case your c drive decides to fail you haven't lost everything. I too can recommend Macrium Reflect. Very fast, stable and easy to use.

Sent from my ONEPLUS A3003 using Tapatalk

[jgillett]

The Acronis backup used to run every morning at 0300. It took a full uninstall of the app, not just removing the external HD from the system, to get the space hog stopped.

Again, the C: drive is 1TB, the external backup is 2TB. I consider the gain back of 42GB to be a big step, but still think there is more to be found.

Thanks.

[jgillett]

So are you backing up to you can drive then if this was filing up with data? Best policy is backup to an external.drive, just in case your c drive decides to fail you haven't lost everything. I too can recommend Macrium Reflect. Very fast, stable and easy to use.

Sent from my ONEPLUS A3003 using Tapatalk

As explained, the C: is 1TB and the external is 2TB. I NEVER backup to the internal - that's a dumb move as you suggest above. It was the C: drive that was losing free space, even though it was NOT used as the backup drive.

Thanks for the comment on Macrium Reflect.

[jgillett]

Just looking into Macrium Reflect. For those of you who recommended it, if you haven't been on their site recently there's a major update coming on 27 Feb. See http://www.macrium.com/pages/version-7.aspx.

Just FYI...

[weatherc]

TreeSize Free will show you the content of the partition. I have used it many times when looked for spacehogs. 

[WeatherHost]

As explained, the C: is 1TB and the external is 2TB. I NEVER backup to the internal - that's a dumb move as you suggest above.

One thing to keep in mind when having external drives connected for backups.  If you get hit with some malware or ransomware, they will infect and encrypt all connected drives, often before you know you have been infected.  If that happened, your backups would be useless and probably inaccessible.

I try to keep my EHDs physically disconnected when not in use.  Connect for use and to do a backup, then disconnect.

[Jstx]

That Macrium looks OK, but $70?
I've always used a great free backup program called "DriveImageXML" from Runtime Software, never a problem. Plus, the XML data files are parseable without any special app.
Have bought Acronis on sale for ~$20, never a problem with it either. But Acronis likes to change their backup file types from version to version, and thet're not always backward comparable, not good.
I use both for regular backups.

[ConligWX]

Didn't have to pay anything - for my free version

[jgillett]

One thing to keep in mind when having external drives connected for backups.  If you get hit with some malware or ransomware, they will infect and encrypt all connected drives, often before you know you have been infected.  If that happened, your backups would be useless and probably inaccessible.

I try to keep my EHDs physically disconnected when not in use.  Connect for use and to do a backup, then disconnect.

Good point. Another problem with Acronis is it always had a hand on the external drive, whether it was doing the backup or not. That made it very difficult to properly/safely unplug the drive using the eject system because of the multiple tasks that were always running. One had to be very fast on shutting them down via TM and then clicking eject before the tasks automatically restarted and grabbed the drive again. Sophos is running which is supposed to guard against that junk and I run Malwarebytes on a regular basis.

[jgillett]

That Macrium looks OK, but $70?

Regular price on Acronis is $100, although I did pay only $20 for the most recent version I had (which caused all the trouble). Trying to get through the setup for the Macrium now - a free 30 day trial.

[WeatherHost]

I got access to a free branded version of Acronis when I got my WD drive.  It will do most things as long as one of the drives in the system is WD.

[ConligWX]

http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx

It's free!

Sent from my ONEPLUS A3003 using Tapatalk

[jgillett]

Drat - after doing a full backup with Macrium Reflect the free space on C: is back down to 124GB. What the bleep is going on here

[WeatherHost]

In Spacesniffer, what do you see under 'SysVol' if anything?

[jgillett]

In Spacesniffer, what do you see under 'SysVol' if anything?

Don't see "SysVol" as such, but do have...

C:\ - 806.6GB
System Volume Information - 759.6GB

[ConligWX]

Do you have enabled System Restore? if so what percentage of drive space have you allowed it to use?

Also if your running Windows 7 have you run the built in "Disk Cleanup utility"?  this can also remove system restore and show copies and also temp files from MS upgrades.  once you've clean everything, then create a new system restore point.

have a look at this: https://www.howtogeek.com/125923/7-ways-to-free-up-hard-disk-space-on-windows/

[Jstx]

Drat - after doing a full backup with Macrium Reflect the free space on C: is back down to 124GB. What the bleep is going on here

I once used an A?V program called Avira (one of the best, free version, until they jacked with it).
After some 'upgrade/update', it began stashing large log files, not 20G/day, but too big. Over a few weeks to months these files would begin to choke the free drive space.
I tried relocating those files to another, much larger, drive (some of my machines have up to 8+ drives, RAID), and finally gave up using Avira.
The best A/V, firewall, plus, program suite is the free Comodo Internet Suite (CIS); free version too.
Windows can create some update install/backup files that grow unchecked too, but Win 7-10 aren't as bad as before.

Your box is down around that 15% free space area where things will start to get 'funny'. Lots of little glitches and holdups that are never quite apparent, things just slow down or whatever.

One thought is your pagefile management, is it set to Window's 'recommended-auto' size? Do you have enough RAM? (I usually max out the slots, mem is cheap and does make a performance diff).
If you have another drive that can be installed into the box/system, you can move certain things, like the uber-used pagefile, to it; and get them off of the OS system drive. There will be a very noticeable improvement in performance.
A changeover to an SSD or hd-ssd-hybrid system drive would scream (but they still cost too much).

[ConligWX]

Forgot too temp file that are not deleted my CCleaner.

goto Run, then type %TEMP%

this lists all temp files currently accessible for your user.  Select all and try to delete the vast majority. some will be in use however.

[jgillett]

Free space dropped an additional 14GB with the Macrium Reflect install yesterday (seems like a lost just for an install) and before it ran the initial backup. It did run the scheduled backup at 0300 this morning but free space dropped overnight and is now at 110GB. Given the loss was the same with Acronis installed (apparently happening during a backup) and then stopped after I uninstalled it I am now removing the Macrium Reflect, then will go through the same steps as before trying to regain some of what was lost.

Definitely stumped on this one.

[mcrossley]

Installs can trigger the creation of a new system restore point.

As suggested above check your system restore settings (the files are stored in C:\System Volume Information by default - a hidden system folder).
Right click on the computer icon ("This PC" in Win10?) in explorer, select properties, then System Protection. For the drive in question click the Configure... button and see how much space is allocated and used. You can also browse previous restore points from there.

[jgillett]

Hi Mark,

Thanks for joining the 'party'.

I had already done most of everything suggested above including Disk Cleanup, and under it the System Restore and Shadow Copies item (leaves only the most recent restore point and dumps all others). What I missed was checking the System Protection/Disk Space Usage item setting. Turns out it was at 100% (not set there by me!), so even though the restore points were dumped the entire free space on the HD was still reserved. I set it back to 10% (93GB instead of 900GB+) and my free space is now 845GB!! Hoo-ray! Sheesh - as I get older the Dumbo gene takes up more room. Hopefully tomorrow morning the backup will not chew up more free space (Macrium Reflect is still installed). I still suspect the recent Acronis upgrade install did something to change that setting, because this failure did not start happening until then.

Thanks to you and everybody for all the help - and patience.

[WeatherHost]

What I missed was checking the System Protection/Disk Space Usage item setting. Turns out it was at 100% (not set there by me!),

That's why I was asking about SysVol in Spacesniffer because I found the same thing that way a year or so ago.  I don't know why it was at 100%, but once I set it back to 15% all was well again.

[jgillett]

That's why I was asking about SysVol in Spacesniffer because I found the same thing that way a year or so ago.  I don't know why it was at 100%, but once I set it back to 15% all was well again.

I had run the sniffer a few more times since you asked about that and still couldn't come up with what you were asking for. Weird.

Thanks again for your help.