Unusual computer problem: Question here

[Apex]

I'm having a computer tech person come out next Thurs to check this out, but until then, maybe someone here has an idea what this is all about:

My 40b hard drive has had unused disk space of about 26gb for many years.

[Steve M]

You didnt mention defragging, I use O&O defrag which costs money but there are free defraggers out there other than Microsofts default. I also see you are using Norton, and Norton is not such a good antivirus tool. It gets all over your system and to remove it you need to Google for the Norton removal tool, which at best still leaves traces of Norton. The background activity on my pc when I had Norton, seemed to devastate my flight sims performance. I may not have answered your question, but these are two major performance issues I see..         

[Apex]

Thanks for that, SteveM.  I defragged a bit back, it usually says it doesn't need a defrag, I seem to recall it didn't help anyway, but I just ran a defrag analysis and its pretty fragged, so I'm going to run a defrag right now and see what happens. 

I'll keep everything you said on file for reference. 

I use Norton because it came with the system back in 2003.  Any other recommendations?

[Steve M]

I use Vipre, ($29/yr) but there are a few good freeware. (Can't remember them at the moment.)
Also a super good free registry cleaner that should work wonders for you..

http://www.glarysoft.com/products/utili ... ry-repair/

[ozzy72]

Might be worth cleaning up your registry (look for EasyCleaner 2.0, this has a registry cleaner, not perfect but better than nothing).
Also use CCleaner regularly, this clears off junk and is a LOT quicker than a disk cleanup. I normally use it once a day on my PC (lots of internet use).

[Augustus]

I think you must format your hard drive and make new partitions using any partition maker or DOS...
But before that you should make a backup of your data to any other media e.g; portable hard drive or some thing like else..
After making new partitions I'm sure it will be solved..

[Apex]

Tech is coming out tomorrow morning, Remote-works, they are my bosses tech people, I'll let y'awl know what goes down.  All your advice/replies have been noted, thanks for it.

[BuggsK100RS]

Have a look and see if you have got shadow copies switched on.  If you have windows will back up all sorts of files using up your hard disk free space. 

Run Disk Clean up, Click on the More options tab and then in the lower half of the window you have the option to remove all but your last system restore point and your shadow copies.

That can free up some serious space on your HDD if you have never done it.  (I would recommend that you make a new system restore point before you do this just to make shore that if your PC goes tits up you have a point that is up to date)

Hope this helps.

[Apex]

Norton was piling up temporary files in two

[Ivan]

Dont forget to remove all restore points (advanced options for disk cleanup)