Windows 7: no space on hard drive!! please help me:(

i have been getting the low on space messagemy recovery hard drive is full (red)my C is noti am trying to show a picture so i hope someone can help mei am single mom of 15 yr old and he cant do his homework withoutdownloadingi tried to down load windows 7 again and this happened?i have a dell that is 3 years old

Welcome to Seven Forums!

Don't worry about the recovery partition. That is set by the factory and allows you to return your computer to factory specifications so it will be just like the day you brought it home. If you ever have to use the recovery option it would erase everything else on your hard drive (documents, photos, music, other programs, etc) so make sure you've backed up those important personal files or you've made a system image.

The 39MB OEM partition is probably the boot partition. It's what the computer looks for when you first power up the machine (when it first boots.) Again, this is nothing to be concerned about.

Now for the C: partition that's 70% full. The first thing I'd suggest is going through this tutorial.

Hard Disk Space - Free Up and Recover

Not everything will apply to you. I'd try the following options: 1 (you could substitute TreeSize free), 2, 3, 4, 9, 11, 12, 14, 17, 19, and 21. If any of the other options do apply to you feel free to give them a try, too.

Please post back if you were able to get back any hard drive space and how much.

Maybe a dumb question, but if the OEM partition is the boot partition, why isn't it marked as active and system? And also why doesn't the C partition show as boot? I noticed that the Recovery partition is marked as all 3, but since I have never dealt with one before, I am not sure whether that is normal, or not. Thanks for bearing with me.

This must be a Dell system. They always use the recovery partition to store the bootmgr - saves them the extra 100MB system partition.

@leewilky - you should do the following 2 actions:

1. Open the recovery partition and see whether any of your files are in there - e.g. thru data backup. Then move or delete those.

2. For the C partitiom, open an elevated command pompt and run this command:

vssadmin list shadowstorage

Then tell me what is under Allocated and under Maximum.

Thanks for the explanation! I have never owned a Dell before and didn't realize they did that. Like the old saying goes, a person learns something new every day.

regarding marsimur - i dont know how to get it back to factory?? i would love to just delete everything and start over! i have my wiondows 7 discand yes its a dellwe are simple users and my son being a freshamn is needing this compter, like yesterday and i cant afford to have it fixed.i need more steps of what to do??i dont have pic or anything on here. no files, etc,.i tried to do to much to it and now i would love to reset it. i cant even reset to an earlier time? and it says i have no programs??thanks for the help but i really dont know what to do

i am not sure but when i did that it said i had to be the administrator. i am. i have no idea what to do!

can someone just walk me thru how to reset to factory?
thank you so much~

Yes, you have to open Command Prompt in elevated mode. Go to All Programs > Accessories > right click on Command Prompt > run as Admin - now you are in business and can run the command. You can copy it from my post and paste it into the little black window. Then hit Enter.

What make is your PC - procedures differ by make.