Question for the computer junkies...

[Jiggerachi]

Ok, I had a friend call me with probably one of the strangest computer problems ive ever heard of.

He got on his PC this morning notices that his 80gb HD is 3/4 full, strange since last night he ran a defrag/cleanup & was only 20gb or so full. He calls me & after searching awhile he came across a folder in the root of C: called "~ERAFSWD.tmp" full of thousands of jibberish-named files, size on disk 45.2gb, created last night 1:15am, he was on the PC at the time.

Anyone have any idea what could have caused this?? I dont think its possible for a computer to download or create 45gb of information in 8 hours, could a virus ran a loop of creating random files to clog up his HD, if so, itys strange that it would all be localized to a single folder in the root of C:...what the hell could have happened??

Anyway, I told him to back up his stuff & delete the folder. Everything appears to be normal now, his HD is back to 20gb or so, just thought this was very strange. Hes going to reformat sometime today anyway.

[Jiggerachi]

Why did my entire post get lumped into one huge paragraph? It looks like a 15 year old wrote it in l33tsp3Ak. Edit: Also, when I edit the post, all my quote marks keep turning into &:amp&:quot...WTF?? This is supposed to be 3 paragraphs BTW.

[POS Racing]

Operator Error?

Maybe?

[tailchaser]

Clear your browser cache...

The file he found is created by a utility used to securely erase hard drives...

[Jiggerachi]

He cleared it the night before, it wasnt in his browser cache anyway, it was just a random temp folder that popped up in C:

[tailchaser]

He cleared it the night before, it wasnt in his browser cache anyway, it was just a random temp folder that popped up in C:

No... you need to clear your browser cache... That's why the editor is mis-behaving when you try to post.

[Jiggerachi]

Ahhhh...sorry, I missed that...

[channelmaniac]

Does he have a firewall?

Check to see what ports are open on the machine... open a DOS box and type in "netstat -a" and see if port 80 is open...

Last time I saw a PC with gigs & gigs of junk filenames it was hacked and being used to host an illegal warez site.

RJ

[Jiggerachi]

TC nailed it...

After running Eraser, the free space on my drive was lost or reduced noticeably. How can I fix this?
Option 1:
Untick cluster tips in Eraser preferences and select a one pass option and run Eraser again. This should return your full freespace allocation.

Option 2:
It could be that either Eraser was terminated abnormally or the system crashed causing the temporary files to be lodged there and the temp Folder (~ERAFSWD.TMP) may have used up your diskspace. You can remove the folder “~ERAFSWD.TMP” and all the files in it to reclaim the disk space
How to find the ~ERAFSWD.TMP Folder to erase it:
1. Open Windows Explorer.
2. Click on View->Options and Show Hidden Files.
Run a Find.
3. If found Erase it.
If you wish to use the command prompt you can type “deltree X:\~ERAFSWD.TMP”, where X is the drive letter


Thanks Maing!!

[Jiggerachi]

Does he have a firewall?

Check to see what ports are open on the machine... open a DOS box and type in "netstat -a" and see if port 80 is open...

Last time I saw a PC with gigs & gigs of junk filenames it was hacked and being used to host an illegal warez site.

RJ

Man thats crazy!

Should port 80 be closed?? Ill check this at home as well. I am behind a router/firewall, but I doubt its that secure.