Hard Drive Space Reduced

Hard Drive - 60GB
Memory - 512MB
Intel Celeron M Processor
Windows XP, SP2

When I turn on my computer, the amount of space that the hard drive has is reduced in relation to the amount of time my computer is on. For example, I left my computer on all night last night. and in the morning, it has 1.24 MB of space left (at night, it had 8GB, because I had left it on the day before). In fact, you could sit there and watch the space go from 8.24 to 8.23. Before all of this occured, it had 52.3GB of space. I tried system restore, but it had been turned off, and it wouldn't allow me to do it. So, until I hear from somebody, I'm not using my computer. Thank you!

Hello Dude,

A couple of things come to mind, for the purpose of this reply, I shall assume you know how to do below, if not come back.

Secondly you may have been Hijacked, how are you connected to the Web?

You haven't by any chance signed up to one of these let's use your processer forums, something like S.E.T.I.

Assuming not, I won't ask the question but assume you have A.V. protection and it's up to date.

If so run it, but first deleate any temporary IE files & cookies, after doing so, download and run Spy-Bot, download ASquare, cleanup anything they find.

Then do the same by starting in safe mode, (do this by rebooting and start tapping F8 like crazy or run msconfig ), again clean up and then exit safe mode.

Download Highjack This, post results in correct section on this forum, someone will look at it, follow their instructions if required.
Johanus

Look in your Device Manager: Start/Run/ devmgmt.msc

Click the + by Disk Drives. What is the make of your hard drive? There are diagnostics listed here:

http://www.tacktech.com/display.cfm?ttid=287

With a few others listed here:

http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/

Also look at Disk Management: Start/Run/ diskmgmt.msc

Are your drives listed as Healthy? Is this where you are getting your data from?

I have not determined the problem, but I ran the Samsung diagnostics and Dell diagnostics, so I know that the problem is not the hard drive. I contacted Dell, and they said that what they reccomended was an Image Restore, so I'm going to do that. I've backed up all my data, so I don't lose anything. I assume that I just got a very nasty virus somehow. Thank you all for your help!

Thanks for the update and the Thanks!

Let us know how it goes.