Spyware taken over hard drive

My laptop got completely invaded by Spyware a few weeks ago. Spybot and Adaware did nothing, I downloaded some random program and it seems to have got rid of all the annoying pop-ups and so on. However, whatever virus the Spyware caused has taken over my C drive, as it is nearly full. Before the Spyware I had nearly half of it free.

I can't see where the files are that are filling up the drive, the files and folders I've looked at only add up to about 6GB (capacity is 18GB). How is this happening and what can I do to fix it? Obviously my laptop functions are all affected as it needs so much space on the hard drive to run properly. Even to run System Restore and such programs requires 200MB free space, I have 140MB. Help!

derek27

it was associated with a file sharing application... many of the files are not genuine... some files, once you download them, in some way self replicate and take over all your hard disk space. even when you delete one copy of the file it will copy itself again. the way i got rid of it was to open the file sharing application i was using and and locate the replicated file (over 100000 times!!!) and select thelot of them from there and deleted them. if you use a file sharing thing you might have encountered the same problem.

mike65

This wont fix the problem but have you used easycleaner? It gives a breakdown of your drives folders and files. It might at least show where the space is being eaten up so you might be able to delete it.

http://personal.inet.fi/business/toniarts/ecleane.htm

Mike.

Optikus

Download and Run Spybot S&D, Ewido, AVG and Adware if you have not done so already. After running them in normal mode, boot into safe mode and run again. If you are still having probs after this download HiJack This, run it and save a log file, post the log file here and we can help you further.

weemcd

have you considered the possibilty of system restore? I was sceptical about using it but it worked a dream on my friends computer.

TempestSabre

mike65 wrote:

This wont fix the problem but have you used easycleaner? It gives a breakdown of your drives folders and files. It might at least show where the space is being eaten up so you might be able to delete it.

http://personal.inet.fi/business/toniarts/ecleane.htm

Mike.

I use Treespace myself. But yeat find out what files are using the space. Do a search for them and you'll probably find out what virus/spyware is causing it. Run AVG and X-Cleaner aswell.

Thanks I will try relocating the files. The anti spyware programs eventually got rid of all the annoying stuff but my hard drive is still clogged. I can't run System Restore, as ironically it needs 200MB of free space. What exactly does it do? Don't you lose all your stuff on the C drive? I've never backed it up.

wheres me jumpa

weemcd wrote:

have you considered the possibilty of system restore? I was sceptical about using it but it worked a dream on my friends computer.

Worked a dream for me too. Saves so much hassle.

8T8

Use SC-Disk Info (freeware) to locate what folders are consuming the most disk space - most likely ones buried deep in the computers hard drive or check the temp folders under your C:\Documents & settings\your user name\local settings\temp and the C:\Windows\temp folder.

Just a caution but system restore is not a guaranteed solution to spyware some even hide in the system restore cache as a means to "heal" themselves after an attempt at removal.

If the system seems clean enough I would also suggest running Hijack This and look for any suspicious items loading at start-up (just in case) also Windows Defender is actually rather good at tracking down nefarious programs a full system scan with it might be a good idea for piece of mind.

I downloaded the disk checker and it said my 'Shared' in Documents and Settings folder was 3GB. I investigated in My Computer and it is full of random files for music, games software, etc that I didnt put there. They all correspond to 'Setup.exe', the bad file downloaded using Limewire which started off this whole mess. There are thousands of items there, way too many to delete one by one. Is there anything important in this folder I need to keep? Could I delete it and make a new empty one or would Windows not let me do that?

8T8

Anything you need to keep well no unless you put something there.

Windows might not let you delete the root shared doucments folder but just delete the contents of the shared documents folder by clicking "edit" then "select all" then press the delete key on your keyboard.

projectmayhem

try this. i had a big spyware issues a few weeks ago and this destroyed it all. it's a free trial for 14 days or something, but you'll only need 1 sweep with it

netwhizkid

8T8 wrote:

Anything you need to keep well no unless you put something there.

Windows might not let you delete the root shared doucments folder but just delete the contents of the shared documents folder by clicking "edit" then "select all" then press the delete key on your keyboard.

If you are having trouble deleting something try downloading Unlocker A friend of mine downloaded LimeWire P2P last week foolishly on a 33.3Kbps Dial-up... I kid you not. Anyway the limewire thingy was guzzling his meagre resources.

We removed it through add & remove programs in the Xp control panel. But there was still files left littered around the place. Some of them were locked and would not delete. The "unlocker" gadget I pointed you towards is free to download and will give the unlocker option in the right-click menu, use it and you can delete whatever you wish. Got rid of Limewire and freed up my friends dial-up again anyways.

astrofool

if you can't delete files, you can either start up in safe mode, or use process explorer to find out whats using the file, and kill the process from there, then delete it.

Zoned

Check out http://www.antirootkit.com...

You might have a rootkit that is hiding the spyware so adaware or any other scanner cannot see it.

A rootkit is a piece of software that can hide itself and spyware, viruses, keyloggers...etc.. from any scanner software. You need to get a dedicated rootkit scanner to remove the rootkit.

get Hijackthis and post the log and we should be able to indentify some spyware from it as well.

regards

Zoned

Fanny Cradock

Hitman Pro 2 combines a number of popular antispyware programmes (adaware, trend micro, spyware doctor etc.) into one handy to run tool.