Hard drive black hole?

[rubberball]

Probably won't believe this but having bought a new PC on 1st November this year and having transferred all date etc from my old one, I noticed a strange event the other day! I have always been concious of the disk space I have used and on my old one I had taken up 50gb max.

 

This new PC has a 500gb hard drive and after downloading GOGGLE EARTH, I encountered problems with that programme and uninstalled it.

 

Whilst the PC was on standby, I noticed "activity" and when going into Task Manager and processes, saw that Google Earth was the only programme working and at 25% usage???

 

I stopped it and later noticed that from 40gb having being used an additional 40+gb and disappeared on my hard drive read out.

 

I have since tried to install and use Google Earth but apart from the first use each time it will not do so and I have uninstalled and re-installed several times but with the same result.

 

A search shows no trace of Google Earth yet when I used Spy Bot search and destroy, it showed numerous references to a user file with Google Earth listed - C:\Users\Ange and Geoffs\Appdata\locallow\GoogleEarth\uniffied_cache_leveldb.

 

I cannot find any other explanation than that my hard drive usage has "fallen into a black hole"?

 

My total HD usage is 107gb!!

[Plastic Nev]

Hi and welcome to Extreme Tech Support - Free PC Help.

I assume you were using the Windows add or remove programs facility to uninstall Google Earth. The problem with the Windows system it leaves behind too many files and other data.

 

Two things you can do, either go to system restore, and choose a time to restore to which is before you first installed Google Earth. That will get rid of all traces for you, but also will remove any other programs you installed since the date you choose.

 

Or there is a free uninstaller that searches out all files and folders for you and removes the lot, it is called Revo Uninstaller.

 

You can download the uninstaller from here-

 

http://www.revouninstaller.com/revo_uninstaller_free_download.html

 

You can try the 30 day trial pro version, or scroll down the page and download the free version.

I will recommend that the free version is more than good enough for what you need.

 

Once Revo is downloaded and installed, first fully install Google earth again, then open Revo, it will find the Google earth as well as all other programs you have installed, to uninstall any program, select it then click the uninstall button, or alternatively double click the program icon, you will be asked "Do you wish to uninstall ****, " click the yes and you then get the box to select the mode of uninstall you want. The default is usually the Moderate and that is good enough, however if you wish, you can select the advanced mode for a deeper scan and removal.

 

Once you have removed all traces of Google Earth, you should then be back to where you want to be.

 

I will also add that I didn't bother installing Google earth on this W7 machine as it is much easier to just open the Google web page, then click on the top row, "Maps", when that opens you get the choice of plain maps or the satellite view just as in Google earth, no need to download and install it for general viewing and route making or following.

 

Nev.

[rubberball]

Thanks will try that but I have more info now.

 

Whilst doing a malware scan - I noticed that the reference above - corrected to - C:\Users\Ange and Geoffs\Appdata\locallow\Google\GoogleEarth\uniffied_cache _leveldb_leveldb2\067900sst.

 

Watched it scan from 000000 upto the 067900!

 

Does this mean that there are 067900 files/folders for google earth?? A massive amount whatever has happened I would say?

[Plastic Nev]

Hi again, considering the computer is only just above a month old, I would try the system restore option first, it is the simplest and will bring your computer nearly back to the condition it was in after buying it, but hopefully after you transferred the data. Though general data such as music, documents, pictures should stay there anyway.

 

Nev.