Strange folder using 841 GB of disk space. Can I delete it? Help!

[zuzu923]

This strange folder is using 841GB and has 4,725 files! I have only 3 GB of free space left now. I have no idea what this folder is or where it came from: C:\)pEq3T}jYHB~zWEatY. Does anyone recognize it? I discovered it only because I started getting messages that I was running out of disk space, which made no sense. I scanned the folder and the files don't appear to contain viruses or spyware. I want to delete it but I'm still not sure it's safe and I don't want to ruin my laptop which is only a year old. Please help! Thanks in advance. Screen shot is attached.

P.S. I'm using a Dell Inspiron 5558 laptop with Windows 10 Home.

 

[USAFRet]

Please tell us why you don't think this is a virus or other malware.

This is NOT a normal Windows OS thing.

 

[zuzu923]

Please tell us why you don't think this is a virus or other malware.

This is NOT a normal Windows OS thing.

I scanned the folder with Windows Defender (don't laugh! my free McAfee trial ran out and I haven't replaced it yet) and no threats were found. I'm in the process of scanning it with Spybot but that is slow going. Of the 800 or so files its scanned already, 36 were found to be 'unknown' and the rest were clean. Is there another virus/spyware program you think I should use?

This folder was created on 2/7/2017 at 7:39 AM. I just checked the Download folder to see if there's anything with that date and I see that I downloaded Eraser 6.2.0.2979 at 6:31 AM. Is it possible Eraser did something wacky?

 

[aquielisunari]

This strange folder is using 841GB and has 4,725 files! I have only 3 GB of free space left now. I have no idea what this folder is or where it came from: C:\)pEq3T}jYHB~zWEatY. Does anyone recognize it? I discovered it only because I started getting messages that I was running out of disk space, which made no sense. I scanned the folder and the files don't appear to contain viruses or spyware. I want to delete it but I'm still not sure it's safe and I don't want to ruin my laptop which is only a year old. Please help! Thanks in advance. Screen shot is attached.

P.S. I'm using a Dell Inspiron 5558 laptop with Windows 10 Home.

Not normal at all. Every file being identical in size isn't something I have seen. Where is this folder? I see it's in your C drive. What's the path's full name? C:\NVIDIA and C:\Windows\Fonts are a couple other examples.

Have you visited questionable sites? Do you use torrents? Returns the sweat shop in Johannesburg South Africa. Odd.

https://www.hybrid-analysis.com/ might be of some help.

 

[zuzu923]

The full path is C:\ then the folder name, you can see it in the screen shot below. I went to Folder Options -> View -> Advanced settings then checked 'Display the full path in the title bar' so I assume this path is correct.

I do my best my avoid questionable sites but sometimes you click a link that looks legit that takes you to a suspect place. If that happens, I get out asap. I don't use torrents; I don't trust them. I once went by mistake to a movie site that used torrents but I left quickly and didn't download anything, not knowingly anyway.

Thanks for the hybrid-analysis link. Most of the files in the folder are 216MB which was too big for analysis ("Request Entry Too Large"). So I tried a 1K file and got this message: Oops! The analysis system reported an error: The file "c6c5ebc4dcc2a80f082279fe3d263ff68919217efe989aee0fbe8956afb78bd9" has the file format "raw data", which is not supported. I have no idea if raw data means it's less likely to be a virus or more likely. Any ideas? The weird part is that in the folder, that file has a very different name which is highlighted in the screen shot.

I don't know what you mean by "Returns the sweat shop in Johannesburg South Africa. Odd."

Thanks for your help.

 

[USAFRet]

This is either a virus/malware, or the drive is in the process of being a corrupted file system.

 

[zuzu923]

This is either a virus/malware, or the drive is in the process of being a corrupted file system.

Yeah, neither of those options sound great! So if it's a virus/malware what should I do? I want it gone but is it safe to delete all the files? When you say the drive is in the process of being a corrupted file system, do you mean the entire C: drive is being corrupted? Because that sounds very bad. Is there a way to fix this? The folder hasn't changed since it was created on 2/7/2017. In other words, no new files have been added and the current files haven't changed in any way I can see.

Thanks for your help.

 

[USAFRet]

This is either a virus/malware, or the drive is in the process of being a corrupted file system.

Yeah, neither of those options sound great! So if it's a virus/malware what should I do? I want it gone but is it safe to delete all the files? When you say the drive is in the process of being a corrupted file system, do you mean the entire C: drive is being corrupted? Because that sounds very bad. Is there a way to fix this? The folder hasn't changed since it was created on 2/7/2017. In other words, no new files have been added and the current files haven't changed in any way I can see.

Thanks for your help.

Virus/malware - scan the WHOLE drive and/or system, not just those folders. Those are the possible result, not the cause.
Dying drive? Backup whatever you can find, buy a new drive, and prepare for an actual replacement. This would be a physical fail, and there is really nothing you can do about it.

 

[yamahahornist]

Try scanning your computer will malware bytes... That doesn't look normal at all...

 

[zuzu923]

Virus/malware - Ah, it didn't occur to me the files might be the result of malware. I had done full system scans, just forgot to mention it since I do them pretty regularly. I had never before scanned one folder only so it was something different that I tried.

Dying drive - Ugh, I really hope this isn't happening. Sounds like lots of opportunity to screw things up even more as I'm not the most gifted person technology-wise.

 

[USAFRet]

Virus/malware - Ah, it didn't occur to me the files might be the result of malware. I had done full system scans, just forgot to mention it since I do them pretty regularly. I had never before scanned one folder only so it was something different that I tried.

Dying drive - Ugh, I really hope this isn't happening. Sounds like lots of opportunity to screw things up even more as I'm not the most gifted person technology-wise.

Drives die. It happens.
This is when you wish we had invented a time machine, so you could go back in time and do a full backup, just before the drive died.

 

[zuzu923]

Try scanning your computer will malware bytes... That doesn't look normal at all...

Thanks, I took your advice and scanned the whole system with Malware Bytes and, apart from a couple of unrelated minor issues, all was well. Then I did the same with Avast and got the same result, no virus/malware detected.

That being the case, I decided to delete all the files because I hate that my free disk space is nearly non-existent. It took quite some time but they're gone now and so far, so good. I re-scanned with both programs after deletion and all is still well. I'll back up my files just in case the drive really is dying. Since this laptop is fairly new there isn't too much saved on it yet so that will help.

Thanks again to all who took the time to respond!

 

[zuzu923]

Drives die. It happens.
This is when you wish we had invented a time machine, so you could go back in time and do a full backup, just before the drive died.

Ha! I'm keeping my fingers and toes crossed, I hear that keeps Death away from drives. But a time machine - now that's just silly!