Outboard hard disc filled by backups

I have a 500 GB SimpleTech hard drive (outboard) that I recently discovered to be full. Upon exploring its contents, I discovered MANY backup files and have NO idea how/why they were created. I deleted several of the older files to make room for files I wished to store, and then explored further. On the hard drive, I find one folder named HPLAPTOP01 and another named WindowsImageBackup, between them holding MANY GB worth of files with names: Backup Set yyyy-mm-dd xxxxxx. Is Win 7 creating these backups, or is the SimpleTech drive doing it?

hope this may help you. those are win7 made backup files.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/628-backup-user-system-files-delete-backups.html

welcome to sevenforums!

WindowsImageBackup is a standard Windows image. That must have been scheduled by you somehow. They do not happen automatically.

The other one (HPLAPTOP01) I have never seen. Sounds like a backup file from some HP facility.

I think his computer name is HPLAPTOP1. and also he has mentioned that those are named like : backupset yyyy-mm-dd xxxxxx, which I get was those are in a path like Drive:\HPLAPTOP1\backupset yyyy-mm-dd xxxxxx. as to brink's tutorial and I have seen those kinda files on one of my cousin's usb HDD. because he has turned on windows backup and scheduled it to run automatically. If HPLAPTOP1 isn't his computer name, then that should be happening because of his software.

Images are nice to have - they are actually a must as far as I am concerned. But if you don't know what they are, they are pretty useless. And Windows7 imaging is really not the function to use. Too touchy and too unreliable.

If I were you, I would delete all this stuff and start imaging with free Macrium which is fast, easy to use and reliable. And there you know what you are doing. I made a little tutorial to get you started: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/73828-imaging-free-macrium.html?ltr=I