Low Disk D Space

Hello All,

I have been reading the posts about the above mentioned problem, but having a problem understanding the "how to's". Also, I will include more info for my situation.

I was using a Western Digital external hard drive for backup purposes. I left it plugged into my computer for a long period of time. I'm assuming that is the cause of my "Low Disk Space" message constantly appearing? I have no idea how to use that Western Digital contraption; I have tried to read the instructions, but can't understand those either.

As you might be able to tell, I am pretty clueless about this problem. Sorry to be a numb nut with this, but I hope someone out there has the patience to deal with me!

Thanks in Advance!

Thank you so much for replying; I'll get that screen shot to you asap!

Bare Foot Kid said:

Hello star59, welcome to Seven Forums!


I'm not around here to-much anymore but I can get you started.

So you can get the correct advice, please post a maximized snip / screen-shot of Windows 7 disk management, making sure the Status column in the top section is clearly readable, have a look at this tutorial linked below.

How to Upload and Post a Screenshot

Ok.....already I don't know how to find the disk management, but I do, however, know how to get you that screen shot! Sorry for my cluelessness.......new word....

Click Start > Right click "Computer" > Click "Manage" > Now click Disk management in the left pane as shown:

Ok, got the screen shot........

How much space do you have free on both on C: and D: respectively?

Right click on the 14.18 GB box you see (marked with "Healthy (primary partition)") > Click "Change Drive letter and Paths" > Now click "Add" in the dialog box that appears > Select "Assign the following drive letter" and select any letter (let's say Z) from the drop down list ahead > Click OK

Now go to Computer, you'll find Z: drive there if you assigned the letter Z. Open it, check the contents. Also check the free space on the drive by right-clicking it and selecting properties. Is there very little free space there? If yes, this can be reason for the warnings. Either free up Z drive a bit or follow the instructions below:

You can disable low disk space messages this way:

1. Click Start

2. Type "regedit" [without quotes] and hit Enter.

3. Navigate to

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer

• If "Explorer" doesn't exist (as was my case), right click "Policies" on the left > Click New > Key
  
• Enter the name as "Explorer" and hit enter.

4. Make sure Explorer is selected on the left pane.

5. On the right pane, right click > New > DWORD (32 bit) value > Name the value as "NoLowDiskSpaceChecks"

6. Double click it and set the value to "1".

7. Once done, log off and log back on. Now you won't ever be bugged by Low disk space warnings.

Change drive letter and paths is grayed out...is is possible my WD external drive is using D to put the backup files on? If so, can I delete those files since Windows does it's own backup? It doesn't help that I can't understand how the Western Digital drive works; I thought once you plug it in, the back up goes on THAT drive. Very confused....

I don't know about the backup thing, but if you just want to stop the warning messages, just follow the second half of my previous post.

If you do have the free space on your internal and external drives that's supposed to be there, then why worry unless you think something hidden is taking up your valuable space?