Mysterious 164gb Folder On C Drive

[onewheeldave 22]

With my laptop running short on memory I did a bit of looking and found a large 164Gb folder called 'mWH8osWfxHI8dKEhcp' on my C drive. It contains a lot of files with names that seem to be random strings of characters, each file listed as being of identical size (221,184 Kb), which I find very strange.

I'm reluctant to delete the folder as I have no idea if they are important, but I've never encountered a folder like this on my other computers and with it taking up 164 Gb I do want to do something about it.

It's a HP laptop running win10, I've got no idea how long the folder has been there, I've restarted the computer twice, and the folder remains.

Anyone got any ideas?

Edited December 22, 2019 by onewheeldave

[fools 447]

Have you (or someone) installed a program to wipe free space such as ccleaner or eraser, if so you can safely delete the folder and it's contents. The timestamps should reflect the date when it was last run, if it's being run on a schedule, you may want to adjust the settings.

 

Do a disk image backup first to an external drive (macrium reflect is free) if you are still concerned about deleting it. 

 

 

[zach 234]

It could be a HP recovery folder that interacts with one of their tools. Even as a backup/recovery folder, it seems quite big so it might be worth looking at the HP, or any other apps installed and see if it's one of those.

 

Did you upgrade from Windows 7/8 to 10 on it?

 

Do the dates on the files follow any order and are the latest dates recent ?

 

It could be years of registry backups and only the most recent are needed, if any at all.

 

As above, do an image first, just in case. Then you could try to remove the folder and uninstall any tools/apps you don't want or need.

[Temuchin 13]

A quick search for "files random size 221,184 Kb" shows you are not alone - and have got off lightly with a mere 164GB! Maybe have a look at this post for starters. And if you don't feel happy about deleting the folder immediately, just rename it (by adding a string such as ' disabled' to the end of the random name) and see if anything complains or breaks.

[zach 234]

14 minutes ago, Temuchin said:

A quick search for "files random size 221,184 Kb" shows you are not alone - and have got off lightly with a mere 164GB! Maybe have a look at this post for starters. And if you don't feel happy about deleting the folder immediately, just rename it (by adding a string such as ' disabled' to the end of the random name) and see if anything complains or breaks.

Very good point and an easy test.

 

My usual is to add "_old" without the " to the end of the folder name. I'd still look at the file dates inside, that could indicate how long it might take to trigger an error with a folder rename or if it's just old saved files etc.