virus eating up hard disk space and rollback isn't of any use

[Pierke]

I think I have a virus eating my disk space. So on my active (system) hard disk there's no space left whatsoever to do anything in. My hard disk has two partions, but both are affected. Disk C(455 GB) and disk D (475 GB) as well, have only 100 MB left, sometimes even a few KB. Looking at the space my real files are occupying, I should have 150 GB left on both disks.

Whatever I try Rollback RX doesn't work when I want it to restore to a moment in time when the computer functioned properly. It without my consent restores at every start up to the last setting. So if I uninstall programs or delete data, in the hope to clear up some space, everything is back again after a restart.

I want to do a clean install from my Windows 7 DVD, but Rollback is also preventing that. When I get the black screen with the message start up from DVD or CD and I hit any key, it doesn't go to the Windows DVD, but it jumps to the Rollback screen with press home to restore computer. When pressing home key nothing happens and computer starts up normally. This way I also can’t get into the Subsystem to uninstall Rollback.
As installed Rollback only a week ago, I am getting the impression that the program in this situation is more a curse than a help. It even crossed my mind that the culprit isn't a virus, but Rollback itself. This is of course not very fair, but I'm trying to get out of this mess, since two days and nothing works.

I couldn't get the chat function on the Horizon website to work and tried opening a ticket, but after typing in my story couldn't find a send button on the page, so this is my last resort.

Any helpful suggestions are welcome. Thanks in advance.
Pierke

[HDS-Jacob]

Hi Pierke,

Welcome to the Horizon DataSys forum. Sorry for the inconvenience and thanks for bringing this to our attention. Let's see if we can get some suggestions here and I'll flag this for Nick.

Best,
Jacob

[Jimmy]

why do you assume it's a virus ?

did you check with a virusscanner ?

did you try uninstalling rollback ?

it is odd that your problems begon a few days after installing rollback

why a you contemplating reinstalling the OS? That should always be your very last option

[Jimmy]

it would also be helpful if you retrace everything you did on your PC since before the problem first occurred.

did you install a new program ?

did you surf to dangerous sites ?

[nexstar]

Hi Pierke,

Sorry about your problems. Can you get into the main RB window ok from Windows? If you can, how many snapshots have you got and can you delete one or two to create some room? If you can then do a RollBack defrag to optimise the space and reboot.

Do you have a defragger or system optimiser installed which might be working in the background? The important thing is to try and get some breathing space so you can find out what might be causing the problem. Is RB protecting both partitions?

Graham

[Froggie]

Pierke, if Rollback is eating up your disk (don't know this for sure), this is caused by your disk content constantly changing. If you don't need any snapshots, you can determine this by updating your baseline... this will free up any space sucked up by Rollback. If it does, then starts to eat space once again, my guess is some disk defragger (some are part of virus suites) is running amok trying to constantly defrag your disk. See if your security suite is "offering" this feature, and if so, turn it off. Rollback doesn't behave well with these things constantly in use.

Let us know if anything changes...

[HDS-Jacob]

Hi again Pierke,

As for submitting a ticket to support, there should be a button toward the bottom of the page "My answer is not here" underneath the "Suggested Answers" that must be clicked to reveal a "Preview" and "Finish >>" button. When you click on the "Finish >>" button, you should get a confirmation page with a ticket number.

Best,
Jacob

[Pierke]

Hi all,
Thanks for all the suggestions. I ran MacAfee and a free virusscanner and they both didn't catch any virussus. So I drew a blank there. But while searching on the internet I found other people with the same problem and it was usually suggested that it could be a virus.

I have shut down the computer with the problem, unhooked all the extern hard drives and disabled it's internet connection and connection to my home network, afraid ikt would affect more than only the C and D drive. Rollback was indeed protecting both drives. I have Diskeeper running in the background, which is a pice of software that defragging in the background. I tried to stop it but that didn't work either. For I tried to make some room on the D drive and formatting it, but as the drive was used by a program (I think Diskeeper) this was aborted.

I can't get into the main RB window from Windows. I wish I could. But the home key just doesn't work.

It's already late here (Netherlands) and I have to rise very early tomorrow. As soon as I find time I will answer more of your questions. Thanks for all the help you're offering, it feels great after two days wondering what to do and trying out things on my own.

[Pierke]

Originally Posted by HDS-Jacob

Hi again Pierke,

As for submitting a ticket to support, there should be a button toward the bottom of the page "My answer is not here" underneath the "Suggested Answers" that must be clicked to reveal a "Preview" and "Finish >>" button. When you click on the "Finish >>" button, you should get a confirmation page with a ticket number.

Best,
Jacob

The button was there the first time. After writing my message I pressed it, nothing happened. I got a white page and no ticket number appeared. When trying to type my message a second time, the button had vanished, there only was a link to a website that provided the software for the tickets.

[nexstar]

Almost certainly it is the interaction between Diskeeper and RollBack which is causing your problems at the moment. I don't use Diskeeper but I saw that the latest version has something called 'Intelliwrite' which sounds like even more of a recipe for disaster with RB. You may not have the 2010 version though.

Either way, some space needs to be cleared so that you can disable/uninstall Diskeeper but just deleting files won't help as RB will not actually delete those files if they are protected in a snapshot.

Just to clarify, to get into the main RB window from within windows, you can either right-click on the RB icon in the systray and select the "Open Rollback Rx" option or you can double-click the icon instead. The Home key only works when the machine is booting up and the RB logo is displayed.

I'm sure with the support around here that we can get you through this .

Graham