Skip to main content
A
Anonymous
April 15, 2009
Answered

Premiere Pro CS4 eats my C: drive in Vista Ultimate 64-bit SP1

  • April 15, 2009
  • 16 replies
  • 33413 views

I installed Premiere Pro CS4 this last weekend 11-12 April 2009.

I have a Quadcore 3.0GHz with 8Gb of RAM, a 150Gb C: drive fo rthe op sys Vista Ultimate 64-bit SP1 and programs, a 500Go 😧 drive for general data and a K: drive 2Tb RAID0 volume useable about 1.8Gb.

My C: drive was healthy after installation of Premiere Pro with tens of gigabytes free at least. Then I started experimenting with building projects. I put my files on a mix of the 😧 and K: drives especially the AVCHD video assets on the K:.

While importing these AVCHD assets I eventually got a message from Vista that the C: drive was full and I did a clean up and that gave approximetely 30Gb free, I went back to importing, in a couple of hours the 30Gb was gone, this can only be Premiere Pro CS4 eating the C: drive and never returning what it takes. This of course is a disaster precisely because it is my op sys drive and Vista will periodically want to make new restore points especially before applying downloaded updates from Microsoft. I ahve run also chkdsk and defragmenter with no effect. I think Premiere Pro is using some sort of secret work files on the C: drive somewhere and that they just accumulate, of course this would be a bug.

Support Center does not appear to let me open web support issues even though we are in the 90-day bug fix period and I have registered the product with the product key so that is another bug that gets in the way of fixing the first.

Any ideas please?

Thanks!

Peter.

      This topic has been closed for replies.
      Correct answer

      Well thanks for the suggestion, but no the problem was allocation of .PEK and .CFA files to the C: drive by default and that at least in my environment those were invisible and could not be reclaimed. I since restored from a backup to the point just after installation of PrPro, then went into Edit->Preferences->General->Media and set the two files therein to be on the RAID0 drive along with the imported AVCHD assets, now when I imported the assets C: drive remains normal and the .CFA and .PEK files appear in the same folder as the imported assets. And I think that each of the subsystems of PrPro have their own Media file settings to be set also, but those are not proving to be big consumers of space. Anyway having now completed a large part of project setup I am moving forward with other lessons from the Adobe 'classroom in a book'.

      Message du 28/04/09 02:14

      De : "tmsatterfeld"

      A : "JONES Peter"

      Copie à :

      Objet : Premiere Pro CS4 eats my C: drive in Vista Ultimate 64-bit SP1

      Greetings, it sounds to me like your space s being taken up by an ever increasing number of restore points being created. In Vista, unlike XP there is no simply GUI with which to adjust your max allowable space to be used to create restore points. Instead you must launch a command line and set a limit through the VSSAdmin as is is the Volume Shadow Copy which takes the snapshots, you can only find out as well has limit the amount of space allowed for these snapshots through the command line to the VSSAdmn. If your system is set to "Unbounded" there is no limit and it can eat your entire drive away until you get a drive low warning. Since you cannot "See" restore" points or there size, this may be your problem. TMS

      >

      16 replies

      Show previous replies
      A
      Anonymous
      April 17, 2009

      IT IS NOW PROVEN THAT PREMIERE PRO CS4 EATS THE C: DRIVE.

      The trojan horse infiltration is sort of coincidental.

      I restored Vista installation from backup using the Vista DVD restore and refomat utility for the C: drive, I built up software etc that was not coverd by that backup, I took incremental backups as I went so now I can restore quickly to just before and just after Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 installation.

      I beefed up security broadly as security company recommended, because I never had a anti-virus turned on, just a fancy gateway, now I have Kaspersky, and reports are no penetrations.

      In the meantime I isolated not just that Premiere Pro does the eating but where/when.

      THE ANSWER AS TO CAUSE OF EATING OF C: DRIVE IS THE IMPORT OF AVCHD ASSETS. Everytime you import an asset that is stored on the RAID0 drive for some unknown reason Premier Pro CS4 eats a apparently corresponding size of C: drive disk space and this space cannot be seen in any folders on the C: drive, it is just lost and irrecoverable except by a restore as above!!!! After you use the File->Import function you are allowed to continue working but in the meantime you will notice that Premiere Pro does work as well on that file, I have the french language version, at the bottom of the screen it says "Uniformisation[filename].MTS" and it is during this process that the C: drive gets eaten.

      WHERE ARE ADOBE SUPPORT WHEN YOU NEED THEM????

      I cannot enter a support request to tell them and I am in my 90-day free bug-fix period.

      ACTUALLY I AM IN NOW, just a registration problem so they have been informed formally, they have to verify entitlement to the support but maybe we will have the answer next week.

      Thanks everyone.

      E
      excited_Genie16B8
      Legend
      April 17, 2009

      Chances are you've got the scratch disks set up on C: in the Preferences.  If you change that to the D: drive, you should be OK.

      Phil Griffith
      Phil Griffith
      Participating Frequently
      April 18, 2009

      has premiere for a week and already wants to blame it for the troubles of the world. Perhaps, you might want to try to learn it and figure out how to get it to put files where you want them first. As Jim states... you need to look at your scratch disk setup.

      A
      Anonymous
      April 16, 2009

      Thanks for all efforts to explain.

      I am on the trail of another completely different answer.

      I have security features to try to protect the computer, that security device itself as regards to how it appears in Vista was also looking cranky, so I contacted the vendor and they said to do a bunch of report file dumps and email them, I looked at one file before I emailed it, and it reports that the security device detected activity by a trojan horse linked to Ezula. It is in the hands of the security company to analyse the symptoms and the log and if it is a new trojan horse I guess they will track it down because the log shows it 'calling home' and the 'method of entry' so my guess is they should be able to go on a fishing expedition for it and trap it and start analysing it. I hope that is what they are doing anyway. So it is not yet confirmed that this is a trojan horse that has broken in nor how it relates to operation of Premiere Pro CS4 but I think now that is going to be what it is. For info, I found Ezula is adware that embeds itself deeply in Internet Explorer, then it would appear tthat a hacker built a trojan horse to gain entry through the adware. I am no expert on these matters so we leave it to the security company to figure out whether this is so. The observable folders on the C: drive including the hidden folders don't even account for 20Gbytes, it is possible Vista produces loads of files of its own that it just doesn't let you see such as rollback points, but still I think the final analysis will be a trojan horse that runs in the address space of other programs and that attacks the Vista NTFS file allocation tables to make it appear as though disk is being used when it isn't, its a wild theory and I will let you know when security company confirms or denies. But this is the problem with the likes of Adobe forcing us to put our main computer on the internet if we want all the product features, we are just going to get hacked sooner or later.

      Thanks again everyoine.

      D
      don_solomon-z3JEFz
      Participating Frequently
      April 16, 2009

      Adobe deserves criticism for its shoddy QC, but not for making you expose your main machine to risk on the internet.  I never do that, and I never have had a virus or malware on it--never in all the years I've been doing this.  I have picked up a few on my internet machine, though, but they are easily fixed with the security scheme I use.

      As for restore points possibly eating up disk space, which you alluded to earlier--another never for me. Restore points are a half assed measure at best. My security system is a full clone backup of my C drive  starting the day I install an OS  on it, and every time I add a program, and every day when I am working a big complex project. Otherwise, once a week. It takes a few minutes only. That way I  can restore everything in equally few minutes should anything bad happen, like poorly designed software affecting other software, a virus, malware, etc, and including drive failure--which has happened twice over the years.

      Don't get me wrong, a virus checker is very useful to a point, but real security design has to start long before you install one, especially if your machine is the heart of your business, as it is for me.  What is that old saying?  An ounce of prevention is worth..........

      A
      Anonymous
      April 16, 2009

      Yeah, I did not take backups that often cos I did not intend putting the machine onto the net, then I got this device that said it would protect against everything by isolating my machine and making it invisible, I await the analysis by the company but it does appear not to have worked, the only thing that works is very real physical isolation and do not use the internet at all from the main machine. Like I say it simply is not confirmed yet but neither is it denied. You cannot actually go so far as to blame Adobe because stopping hackers is the job of the op sys vendor really so I blame Microsoft, the only blame for Adobe is the policy that some functions require internet connection in order to work when they know internet is not secure, so for instance if you want to use the emulators for things like these mobile phones they want you to be connected, I tried that one phone emulator and it said so, I wish they just put all documentation and all software on the DVD. I can roll back to an earlier Vista version from a USB backup disk that is always powered off, then rebuild as necessary, but I want the security firm to see if it is a trojan in fact first and to see if it can upgrade the security device and provide a roll out of the trojan's work. Right now I am still scripting the documentary and this second quarter is getting this Premiere Pro up ready for third quarter production so I can be philosophical for now, but yes later I will get more disciplined. But at least now I (almost) know the security device is not the all singing wonder they said it was. Oh well. I use a second machine too, a PS3 with Linux, that is what I am using now, this one doesn't seem to get hacked even though it is my sacrificial machine.

      Message du 16/04/09 14:21

      De : "don solomon"

      A : "JONES Peter"

      Copie à :

      Objet : Premiere Pro CS4 eats my C: drive in Vista Ultimate 64-bit SP1

      Adobe deserves criticism for its shoddy QC, but not for maing you exposing your main machine at risk on the internet. I never do that, and I never have had a virus or malware on it--never in all the years I've been doing this. I have picked up a few on my internet machine, though, but they are easily fixed with the security scheme I use.

      As for restore points possibly eating up disk space, which you alluded to earlieranother never for me. Restore points are a half assed measure at best. My security system is a full clone backup of my C drive starting the day I install and OS on it, and every time I add add a program, and every day when I am working a big complex project. Otherwise, once a week. It takes a few minutes only. That way I can restore everything in equally few minutes should anything bad happen, like poorly designed software affecting other software, a virus, malware, etc, and including drive failurewhich has happened twice over the years.

      Don't get me wrong, a virus checker is very useful to a point, but real security design has to start long before you install one, especially if your machine is the heart of your business, as it is for me. What is that old saying? An ounce of prevention is worth..........

      >

      V
      Vista Del Grande
      Participant
      April 16, 2009

      Did you try cleaning up the media cache files? You said you were experimenting with importing files into projects. I don't know why, but Pr seems to have 2 copies of the media cache files. One is in the project directory, but the second copy is in the C:\Documents and Settings\%USERPROFILE%\Application Data\Adobe\Common\Media Cache\ .

      Does anyone know of what to set so that Pr only uses the project directory? I find it annoying that it litters my harddisk with all these cache files from various projects, and doesn't clean up after itself.

      E
      excited_Genie16B8
      Legend
      April 15, 2009

      Chances are you've got the scratch disks set up on C: in the Preferences.  If you change that to the D: drive, you should be OK.

      Bill Gehrke
      Bill Gehrke
      Inspiring
      April 15, 2009

      Well it is not exactly a secret where they place files.  If you export from Premiere when AME comes up it tells you where Premiere has made a copy of your project files.  It is:  C:\\Users\Your_User_Name\AppData\Local\Temp.  But if you only have 30GB left on a 150 GB disk you must have everything execpt the kitchen sink load on your system.

      Harm_Millaard
      Harm_Millaard
      Inspiring
      April 15, 2009

      Bill Gehrke wrote:

      But if you only have 30GB left on a 150 GB disk you must have everything execpt the kitchen sink load on your system.

      I think the kitchen sink is included in there as well.

      D
      don_solomon-z3JEFz
      Participating Frequently
      April 15, 2009

      I presume that you have not assigned your project to a different drive--never put it on C-- and make sure you are capturing to one of your other drives. If it is anything other than how you have set up the project and the preferences, then you definitely have a unique problem, and I can't imagine what it would be.

      Terms & ConditionsAccessibility statement
      Using the community Terms of use Privacy Cookie preferences Do not sell or share my personal information ad choicesAdChoices