Check the recycle bin and empty it.

What problem did you have that caused you to do a System Restore?

I have removed everything from the REcycle bin, there was not much there. I did a system restore because some of my pix had been dumped and I could not find them. I did not find them on system restore either. Now when I look at the "add-remove" box, I cannot un-install AVG from there, it says it cannot or some other stupid reason. I just don't know what could have happened to 56%of free space on my hard drive and what is wrong with my AVG. See when I start up my computer from a re-start, it just runs and runs and runs. every thing is so slow. anyone got any ideas? Thanks in advance. PK

I would shell out to the command prompt (Start/Run/cmd) then from the command prompt, enter the following:

chkdsk /F

If you can't get to the point where you can get a command pormpt, reboot and start hitting the F8 key until you get a list of options for how to start Windows. Choose command prompt safe mode. Then run the chkdsk /f command.

It will tell you that Chkdsk can not run because the disk is already in use and ask if you want to run it when the system restarts. Ansewer Y and then exit the command prompt box.

Then restart the computer and let it run chkdsk when it restarts. It will probably take quite a while to run. Once it finishes, you should have a lot of free space back, or you may have a bunch of files with the extension of chk. Those may be your old pictures, but you'd need to rename them to have a jpg extension (assuming they were jpg to start).

If you still get an error trying to run the uninstall, write down the error message you get and report it here. I've never seen Windows give the error that it cannot or some other stupid reason, so I'm guessing you didn't understand the error message and clicked ok without writing it down. Knowing that you had an error is less helpful than knowing what the error is.

IT sounds like AVG has not ever cleanly un-installed and that is causing a lot of the problems. I would download this free tool that helps do full uninstalls, all you have to do is type in what program you want it to uninstall.
Revo Uninstaller

Thank you both for being so kind as to try to help me. I installed the Revo program and got rid of most of the AVG. It was not able to remove one file, named file stopper or something like that, I should have written it down. As soon as I get some ink in my printer, I am going to do the other suggestion. I went to de-frag after uninstalling AVG and the box was a sea of red. It took almost an hour to defrag the computer. It went from three days ago to 69% free space, down to 38% to 12% back to 27%. I now have no AVG installed. Is there anything else I can do? I will give you my results when I try what bpgreen has suggested. Raven are you a real cajun? If so, I am from Louisiana also. South La. to be exact. lol

Let me tell you all what else is going on? I did a search for "avg" and it came up with 274 files. I do NOT know know to uninstall all of these. I know you cannot just right click and say delete. On the Revo it has search slot, but I tried putting AVG in there, but I could not find a "search" button to hit. I do believe when AVG was being re-installed several times, it would not overwrite what was there even though it was un-installed and kept dumping the download on my hard drive and taking up all that space, but really, what do I know, that is why I am asking for help. I am a computer dummy. Can anyone help? Thanks P.K.

yes 100% Cajun and I too am originally from a very small town in South Louisiana Cajun country on the I-10 LOL Family is all still down there on the bayou!

bpgree, I followed your instructions to a "T" and no new free space was gained. I did a search for AVG and it found over 300 files. What can I do now? Regards, P.K.

I had to do a "go back to prior date" on my computer Was this date prior to the installing of AVG or have you have this version for a long while?

In your original post you stated the need to re-install Windows. Did you install a second instance of Windows or did you do a 'repair' install?

Perhaps you are in the mire deep enough that reformatting the hard drive and starting over might be the best plan. You would need to save all your personal data, address book, favourites etc

I did not say I had to re-install windows, I said I had to re-install windows media player. Now when I used Revo, I did the un-install for AVG. Then I did a search for AVG on Revo, and it came up with a whole LOT of hidden files. I did not see where there was a place to delete these, all it showed was a screen with the avg stuff on it,I could check-uncheck,highlight,etc., but not remove. I am not experienced enough to do a reformatting of hard drive and start over.I do not want to have to take this computer in to be serviced either and have NOT heard back from AVG technical support either. Can anyone else help me? Raven?? anyone? Thanks, P.K. ps, I also did a search for Avg and manually deleted all the files that popped up, but I did NOT gain any free space at all. Any one have a clue where it went?

I can understand not feeling confident enough to reformat, it can be a pain. Sorry about misreading windows instead of Media Player

So why not try using Ccleaner? Install and run the program. click on Tools on the left side and all your installed programs appear. Highlight AVG or any other program you want removed and get rid of it. Then return to the left side and click on Cleaner. In the new window click 'Run cleaner'

Hopefully that will remove AG and all other fragments left behind over time

Here is a link that might be useful: Ccleaner - slim (no Yahoo toolbar)

pkspigs,

Sounds like ever since you did this system restore, back to a prior date you have had nothing but problems, it is always possible you can restore to bad date so keep that in mind. You may want to un-do that restore point, follow owbist directions on cleaner first.

Could you tell us how big your hard disk is, and how much free space is left on it.

I have run Ccleaner several times. Nothing changed. Only place I can find the avg files is in the "search" box and then approx. 185 show up. My orignal free space was 37.5,GB and it has always hovered around 69% still available, until the other day, then poof it was gone and only 9.5GB is left

lets just for safety sake run some malware scans and see if maybe you might have gotten infected with something that is taking up your space. Go get superantispyware free install it hit the update button then run full scan let it clean out anything it finds.
SUPERAntiSpyware
then go run this online scan
Trend Micro

I would hate to think someone has gotten in your pc and taken it over but it happens every day so never hurts to do these scans.

Then there is a free program called xinorbis that will show you in detail exactly what is taking up space on your hard drive so you can spot it right away, at this link there are a lot of screenshots of what it will look like so you can see how well you will see where all the big items are.
Xinorbis (Windows ME/2000/XP)

but do those scans first so we know it is clean.

OK so you have run Ccleaner several times.

Have you used the remove program feature? If so what happened then? If not then why not give it a try?

Have you tried using Windows Explorer to look through the contents of the hard drive to see if anything there shows amiss with excessive files?

I have the Superantispyware, installed Trend Micro, ran it, only showed a couple of cookies. I also did the Xinorbis, and did not fully understand it. Says system is taking up most space.It said on the 17th. of June LOTS of stuff was installed. I did see LOTS of Adobe Photoshop on there, which I uninstalled a long time ago. I right clicked it and it could not find anything for me. I am still at a loss as what to do> I also used the Uninstall program before I ever did any of this stuff. It has also told me on my free space, that I lost 4 % since yesterday.

One more program to run remember no need to pay for anything here. Please see the link..

Once the download is complete, run the install program, and accept all of the default options. Make sure that the options to Update and Launch the software is checked when you click Finish.

Here is a link that might be useful: Malwarebytes

I've run every single program you all have suggested and done everything you all have suggested. I do NOT have any more avg files in the system, thanks a bunch. BUT, I still have 40% of my free space missing, or whatever. I simply do not know what happened to it. Also there is a bunch of Adobe Photoshop files in there I cannot seem to find, and I know it was a big program, but it was installed and uninstalled a long time ago. Seems from one of the programs you all suggested, the one that sees what is on the harddrive, by system, that all the free space disappeared on the 17th. of June. I am afraid to go back before that and do a re-store because it may re-install avg. so maybe I should just give up. I certainly appreciate your time and effort to help me. Regards, P.K.

if you do a system restore to before that day and it does not help you can go back and undo that restore point immediately. plus if it does end up with AVG again you now have the tools to get rid of it.

Please post the Malwarebytes log that is created copy and paste the contents of the log and post it in to a reply,

I simply do not know how to do this, sorry.I am very limited with computers. PK.

Ok here are some instructions follow the best you can, you can save the log to your desktop or simply hilight the entire log by holding down the left mouse button, once everthing is hilighted right click and choose copy, now come back here and put you mouse in the box you would normaly type in but instead of typing right click it and choose copy, the log will post in your reply. If this is to difficult do not worry about it

* Double-click mbam-setup.exe and follow the prompts to install the program. I think you allready have done this part......
* At the end, be sure a checkmark is placed next to Update Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware and Launch Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware, then click Finish.
* If an update is found, it will download and install the latest version.
* Once the program has loaded, select Perform Quick Scan, then click Scan.
* When the scan is complete, click OK, then Show Results to view the results.
* Be sure that everything is checked, and click Remove Selected.
* When completed, a log will open in Notepad. Please save it to a convenient location like the desk top- Copy and Paste that log into your next reply.

Good Luck..

I am wondering if this could be a run away log file. when you have a problem with hard drive space disappearing, look for a gigantic file. In Windows XP, open Windows Explorer (click Start, All Programs, Accessories, Windows Explorer). Click Search and All Files and Folders. Enter *.* in the file name. Tell it to search My Computer. Select Specify Size and pick At Least in the first box. Enter 1000000 in the second box. Click Search.
We are looking for any really large files if you find
something get the info on where it is and what it is.

Also do this, click start, control panel, administrative tools, event viewer, there you will see 3 options double click on them one at a time and see if you have any warnings if you see anything unusual just double click on that entry and it will open a box with info and what the code is. In the security especially look closely for signs of any one other than you logging into your system.
While in control panel open user accounts and look to see if you see any new or additional user accounts listed in there.

do you have a firewall on your pc? if not at the very least get the windows one turned on but I would advise going and getting one of the free ones, and setting it up, just in case someone has gained access to your system.

work with that program xinorbis it will tell you exactly where the big files are that is what it is for so you can see exactly what is taking up that space. It will make pie charts and lists and tell you a lot of info.

Another thing to check is how much space are you allowing system restore to use? you can adjust the amount you let it have. Start, control panel, double click system click the system restore tab then settings if the slider is all the way on max move it down a bit hit apply ok, that might show you have some space back check and see.

And just in case you have not done this already on your browsers clear all the cache, temp internet files, cookies, history, offline content, every thing. If you need directions just tell us.
Go to your trash bin and make sure it is completely empty.

do you have any type of peer to peer sharing programs on your pc? like sharing music of videos? If so lock them down and/ or get rid of them.
Have you installed itunes by any chance and loaded music? sometimes it can duplicate files.

you can download a free program called belarc advisor which will scan your pc and give you a list of everything that is on your pc, but it also has a function that will tell you if your hard drive is healthy or if may be failing, that would be something worth checking.

I am just wracking my brain for things that could be causing this.

But I tell ya I would be thinking of trying a system restore point prior to that date that you said it pointed to and see what happens before you no longer have the option to go back there. As I said if it does not help you can just turn right back around and tell it to undo it. To be doubly sure have it create a restore point right before you do the go back. Do that before you make any changes to your system restore like moving the slider to use less space, would not want to lose the restore point you needed.

I will keep thinking on it as I am sure others are too.