Hi, Intel p3 800 18 GB 256 MB RAM Win2k pro Heavy-duty apps: Office 2k premium Ms Visual Studio 7 .net I’ve recently noticed that my hard drive is extremely close to max out (big problem for me). I’ve doubles checked all Personal folders, such as My Documents with its sub-folders etc. and saw nothing out of the ordinary. But then I decided to check some system folders and found out that my WINNT\system32 folder contains aprox. 11 GB of data. Then I’ve compared it to some of my colleague’s system32 folders and those held less than 1 GB of data. Now I’m worried. Please advise……. This link contains screenshots that gives you more specific details: http://mars.netanya.ac.il/~honimrod/html_pages/w2kprb.htm

See if you don't have a nested system32 folder under the system32 folder. This can easily be done by a accidental drag and drop. I have 3493 files in 63 folders occuping 420mb of space. So it looks like you have about 23 more folders then default.

There was no picture of the SYSTEM32 folder in that web link. Just a picture of the C:\ properties windows and a picture of the C:\WINNT properties window. 11 Gb is a relatively realistic number for your C:\WINNT folder if you have programs installed within this directory. Now, if it is true that most of that 11 Gb shown under C:\WINNT is indeed under C:\WINNT\SYSTEM32, then something is definately not right. Is it possible that perhaps you installed some programs into that folder by mistake? Are there any sub-folders within the C:\WINNT\SYSTEM32 folder? Have you ran a virus check/ad-ware check/spy-ware check? Perhaps if you could provide a list of file names located in the C:\WINNT\SYSTEM32 directory then more could be determined. Lloyd

By the way, there was a picture of your SYSTEM32 folder, I'm just a retard. Was looking at the location folder. Duh. The latter part of my post still applies though. Visual Studio probably put a lot of extra stuff in your SYSTEM32 folder, but definately not 11 Gb worth. My SYSTEM32 folder, which is basically a clean Windows 2000 install, only uses up 231 Mb. I would definately check for spyware/adware/viruses or duplicate folders as wanderer suggested. Best of luck. Lloyd

lloyd33 & wanderer thank you ! None of us considered the possibilty that this situation might have been caused by a virus. I've ran some scan tools and the one of CA's found a flooder on my PC. Now I have to do 2 things: 1) Remove the virus/trojan/whatever 2) drain system32 from the flood.... In the link you'll find a txt file with the output of the dir command on system32 folder. maybe you'd be able to help me which files are to be deleted. http://mars.netanya.ac.il/~honimrod/html_pages/w2kprb.htm

The name of the virus you are infected with is the key. Once you know that, do a search for 'virus-x' removal instructions. You should be able to find a few pages about it either from the virus experts or from other people who were infected with it. There will often be a list of files that are created/related to the virus. Sometimes a good anti-virus program will even remove them for you, but not always. Looking at your SYSTEM32 folder itself, I didn't really see anything out of the ordinary. It's hard to tell what is what though without knowing exactly what is installed on the computer. Your best bet is to do the search on the virus and find out all you can about it. If it is a trojan, you might want to consider installing a firewall program onto the computer to prevent future attacks.