What are "Low disk space" messages for?

[Marty McFly]

I keep getting "Low disk space" messages about one of my partitions.

First of all, what is the point of this message? I can see why it would be useful for the system drive, but for all other drives why would anyone worry about filling up a drive?

More importantly, how can I disable this message from persistently popping up every day?

 

[Brink]

Hello Marty,

It's basically just a warning to let you know that the disk/partition is extremely low on free space. This is to warn you to either clear space or get a bigger storage device soon since you could lose data, possibly everything, on the hard drive if you run out of space on it.

The tutorial below can help show you how to disable the "Low disk space" message.

Low Disk Space Warning in Vista
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Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[ShamrockRig]

Hello, Also, when the hard drive is low on space, it will also take longer to load things etc, resulting in your computer potentially taking longer to do things.

 

[xunile]

If the warning is about your recovery partition it is probably coming up because you copied some data onto the partition. You aren't supposed to use that partition for storing your personal or backup files.

 

[Marty McFly]

It's just a partition I use to store data. I never write to it and it has nothing to do with the system. Just storage. I still don't get it. Are hard drives more likely to crash if they get nearly full?

 

[Brink]

Full OS drives are more likely to cause issues than full data drives when it doesn't have the needed working space on the drive.

 

[noobvious]

Full OS drives are more likely to cause issues than full data drives when it doesn't have the needed working space on the drive.

I'm getting close to that point...enough so that I am periodically going in and wiping my browsing history, cache, etc. I suppose a partition adjustment could solve the problem, but I don't know if that can be done without a reinstall.

 

[Brink]

Hello Randy,

You could use a free program like MiniTool Partition Wizard or EaseUS Partition Master to move space from one partition to the C: partition to give it more space.

 

[noobvious]

Hello Randy,

You could use a free program like MiniTool Partition Wizard or EaseUS Partition Master to move space from one partition to the C: partition to give it more space.

That's good to hear.

I've already moved some stuff onto the external drives to free up room on the internal data partition, so I'll add more of the space from that drive to the C: drive. I hadn't worried about it too much yet, because doing the cleanup I mentioned before would buy me some time, as seen below....



Now I will look into some reorganization of my space on my next day off....thanks for the info!

 

[Brink]

You're welcome. Just a reminder that you can only shuffle space around partitions within the same hard drive like that, and not from a different hard drive.

 

[Marty McFly]

No one should ever be storing data files on their C drive/system drive. It's inevitably going to clog up the smooth running of the OS and there is just no need. I too use a 60gb partition for my system drive so there is always plenty of free space.

I occasionally leave things on the Desktop as a reminder, but hate having to do this. Generally everything goes in its proper place on the relevant drive.

If I could redesign Windows, I would not allow files to be placed on the Desktop. Instead, the Desktop would just contain an attractive graphical to-do list in the middle of the screen, each item either linking to a folder, or a website, or just a text reminder. Optionally, the desktop would also have an area that acts like the Start Menu and have links to all your most important folders and applications. Back in Windows XP it used to be great when you could have a Quick Links toolbar linking to all the drives and important parts of your hard drive. You can't do that any more and it sucks.

 

[Brink]

This is where libraries can come in handy for.

You can have your data saved in folders on any drive you like to save space on C: , then include (link) these folders in one or more libraries of your choice for quick access in one place and still have the folders located where you saved them.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/585-library-include-folder.html

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/4617-libraries-include-network-folder.html
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Afterwards, you can also set a default save to folder for each library.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/595-library-set-save-folder.html
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[Marty McFly]

Thanks Brink. I've always just ignored Libraries as they seem weird and baffling. I will consider them, but I still don't really know if they are of any use to me but thanks anyway.

 

[Brink]

You're welcome Marty. If you have any questions about them while playing, please feel free to ask.