Odd Problem.

So once again, my computer is acting odd, and I have to come to the Guild Wars Guru site in the hopes of finding an answer.

Basically, everything I install or download actually seems to be downloading twice, or taking up far more gigs then it should be, an example, if I download a small 500mb Java file, it ends up being 2-3 gigs, if I download a 5 gig game, it actually is 10 gigs on my PC, and all sorts of other craziness. I tried defragmenting, and all that managed to do was eat away more gigs! I went from 195 free gigs before I started my defragment, to 170 once it was finished, which I have no idea how to even explain.

This happened to me before in the past, and I somewhat managed to fix it, due to modifying a Shadow something in command, but I can't remember what it was, or what I had to do, and the friend who told me hasn't logged on in weeks.

So yeah >_>

Oh, I also am using Win7, full version now.

I have never heard of anything like this in my life, years and years, worst versions of windows (pre-2000 architecture) hundreds of other problems I've seen come and go and nothing like this has ever came to my attention.

I think you should backup everything you care about (also, back up GW) onto an external drive, format the PC's HDD a few times and reinstall Windows.

Btw, how come you haven't done a virus scan or anything? Now...the space might be totally fake, as in a virus..messing with your partition tables... but still something this severe, I would never allow that particular installation of Windows to continue operating, just re-do the entire thing.

so u dl something and that file it's self is larger or is it after u have installed a program. it u are dling a game for ex the game will come commpresed so say a 5gb may come as a Zipped 2.5(jsut for Ex) the u unzip it and then it's 5gbs of file size. then u install the 5gb game so now if u dont delete the ziped datas and unzippied ur 2.5gb dl has turned into a 12.5gb if thats waht ur doing

No offense or anything, and please don't get pissed. Can you, maybe, make your posts a bit more understandable?

I apologize if English is not your native language, then it's ok and well understandable, but if it is your native language.. please try to make an effort in completing words and spelling correctly.

I am having a seriously hard time reading your post.

Anyways I think the OP was not necessary talking about compressed files, and he also did say the defrag tool made his free space go down a lot too, so there must be something much more serious here.

If it isn't some sort of mal-ware chewing up your space, If it were me, I'd look into cleaning up the system restore(s)/shadow copy(ies).

Start-->Computer-->Local disk-->Right click-->Properties-->Disk Cleanup-->
[check files you want to clean up]

now move to the -more options- tab, Look for the System restore and Shadow copies section. click Clean up. you'll get a pop up asking if you want to delete files. delete old restores/copies for your HDD space back. after you click OK Clean up will start to get rid of the junk you wanted to get rid of in the first step.

If you d/l or install tons of stuff, this is a ritual you need to do, unless you turn the services off.

Some times, when you clone one hard drive to another, the info gets copied sector by sector. This can create a similar problem to yours, when the new hard drive is larger than the old one. Basically, a sector that is (for example) 256 bytes long, gets copied to a new sector that is 512 bytes long, making the files appear to take up more space on the new hard drive (but the same number of sectors). However, in that case, a defrag will usually bunch everything back up and recover the lost space.
How does this apply to you? Possibly, there's some problem with your file system or hard drive controller, that is telling the system to break the file into chunks (eg 256 bytes) that are smaller than the hard drive's sectors (eg 512 bytes). That would explain how the defrag actually lost space.
But, I don't know off hand, what could cause this or what the cure could be. How big is your hard drive? What type is it (IDE, SATA). What motherboard or drive controller are you using?
Possibly, you need new Win7 drivers for your motherboard's and/or hd controller.

lol np i'll fix my post it was a long day when i typed it and yeh i am english. Canadian eh. i'll fix it once i get home from work

Ok so what i meant to say was:
When you first download a game for online or largerfiles they tend to come commpressed or zipped. if he's unzipping them now that file is duplicated and the second file is larger. so File one Commpressed 2Gb, Un comppressed 4gb(all eg) then once u have installed it so file three could be another 4gb. after all three it equals to a total of 10gb. if thats waht your doing from waht i can understand. Is it doing it with even say a downloaded Picture or Song?

You could have just edited your first post, instead of making 3.