(This happens on a SSD but might be relevant on HDD too. It's been "touched upon" but I haven't seen a definitive answer. It might be something pretty basic...)

I'm running Win 7-64 Ultimate. My boot drive (e.g. C: - the one with the "issue") is a 256G SSD. I had another issue to which I did a boot trace (WPR/WPA) which generated a large file on the C: drive (~40G). It pretty much filled up my C: drive (e.g. SSD drive). I've deleted it along with some other unneeded large files as I solved my initial problem - the one that necessitated the WPR/WPA boot trace. The trace files are too large to go into the trash so I just permanently deleted them as I have no need from them. I get the free disk space (File Manager --> C: --> Properties) and all is well...

... until I re-boot. The (large) files have reappeared thereby "choking" my system due to the full C: drive; that necessitates another deletion which works just fine until my next re-boot ... (ad infinitum)

If it matters, the SSD is a Samsung 840 Pro (again, 256Gb); I haven't had any other issues with it.

Not that this is relevant but the System Event Log shows a somewhat cryptic (at least to me) message/error during boot: Volsnap (eventid 35) The shadow copies of volume C: were aborted because the shadow copy storage failed to grow.

I'm not running any virtual machines. The boot trace is "turned off".

Any thoughts? (just want those trace/log files on the C: drive to "go away forever"/really get deleted) - Thx.

I had something like that happen quite a while ago. Just looked up what was the cause in my case:

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Sabo Computer Repairs & Data Recovery

Well, the problem has been solved but...

First, thank you for the suggestion. I'm not running Synchback or any sync software (at least I don't think I am) but I did another thorough search of the running processes and startups (via msconfig & autorun) and nothing stood out. It was a good suggestion as it most certainly could have been something of that ilk.

What happened and "worked": The short answer is "I don't know exactly what fixed it but it's fixed". I went though yet another (many) re-boots and every time the SSD filled to capacity with the trace file - I want to say it was a 46Gb file! My usual work-around is to delete it and the C: drive (with the subsequent extra 46Gb of free space) is just fine until the next boot. I noticed that the timestamp of the log/trace file was "at the time of the boot" and not some previous date/time (e.g. when it was originally created). I got in to XPERF (a somewhat cryptic command line utility) and WPR (Windows Performance Recorder) and "entered a few commands" (de-checked all boxes in the graphic interface although there is no button to save that information so I'm not sure it did anything). I stopped the hash table recording in XPERF and tried other options with subsequent error messages. Now I boot and there are no trace files generated; my C: drive has that 46Gb of headroom. Sorry - I just don't know what it was that stopped it (or what was causing it in the first place).

Note that there was no option to de-install (remove program) for XPERF or WPR/WPA. Also, I never saw any process/task queued up/running (via msconfig or autoruns or any task manager) so I have no idea on what kicks it off and as such how to stop if from running as such. I also don't know what was in the enormous trace file (I'd suspect it was an appended file across multiple boots and not a new from scratch one but I can't verify that) as I couldn't run the analyzer as I got choked out due to disk space. If it was building upon the old/deleted file, I don't know how it did that.

I hope that this helps somebody in the future. I'm certain that there are some/many significantly more competent than I am at using XPERF and WPR/WPA; right now I'm not looking to become an "expert". Suffice it to say that XPERF & WPR are idiosyncratic...

Well, glad you got it fixed, in any event. I hate it when that happens to me (don't know what fixed it). I've had customers who had inadvertently set up Norton Backup to back up to the c: drive. Filled it right up and kept it filled. Doesn't sound like a candidate in your case.

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Sabo Computer Repairs & Data Recovery

Thanks Larry -

The good news is that it's fixed...