Solved Can you put Recovery Drive D on a flash drive to free up hard drive

[mgb007]

Sorry I am a computer novice; but, I am running out of hard drive C space and I thought maybe I could put Recovery Drive D on a flash drive in order to free up drive C space.

If this is possible, can you refer me to some instructions on how to do this?

Thanks in advance for your help.

 

[GokAy]

To be honest a recovery drive won't give you much space (10 GB or so?). You are better off with a USB external HDD and move your less accessed data to the external.

I wonder what others will say.

 

[mgb007]

GokAy -- thanks for the fast reply. I had considered that; but, I fly all over the world and it would be cumbersome (near impossible) lugging around an external drive. The Recovery Drive has 18 GB allocated to it and while that is not much space it would sure help. Thanks again. We'll see what others say.

 

[strollin]

I'm not a big fan of the recovery partition anyway since if you recover your system that way it restores it back to the way your system was the day you got it. Complete with any bloatware that was installed but more importantly, without the additional software you installed and without the latest system updates.

Instead, I prefer to get my system setup the way I like it then use software such as the free Macrium Reflect to create a system image of it on an external drive. An exact copy with all my software and system updates installed. This image can be used to restore my system back to working order rather than back to fresh from the factory.

If you create a system image as I described then you can safely delete the recovery partition and use that space to expand your C: drive.

Another suggestion, why not install a larger hard drive? You don't say how big your current drive is but it is likely that you could install a larger drive. Having a system image like I suggested would allow you to simply install the larger drive and then restore the system image to the larger drive and you would be up and running. A 2TB hdd can be purchased for around $100. If you lack the expertise to replace the hdd and clone the drive, a shop could do it for you but that would add around $150 service charge to the cost of the upgrade.

 

[mgb007]

Strollin, thanks for the reply -- your reply made me remember that my Carbonite back up also backs up my system components therefore, I guess I don't need that Recovery drive at all. I should have thought of that before; but, thanks for "activating" my memory.

 

[strollin]

Strollin, thanks for the reply -- your reply made me remember that my Carbonite back up also backs up my system components therefore, I guess I don't need that Recovery drive at all. I should have thought of that before; but, thanks for "activating" my memory.

Glad I jogged your memory.

From my brief reading of the Carbonite website it does provide mirror imaging which is what I'm referring to but it isn't an automatic cloud thing, you need to do the mirror image to an external drive.

Also, if you're really that tight on disk space, consider upgrading to a larger hdd like I suggested.

 

[GokAy]

Come on that's a lousy excuse about the hardship of carrying it

Well I guess Strollin is right with his reasoning, but not sure if your Carbonite is safe. Just searched for it and it looks it only backs up data files. What if your HD fails? How will you get the OS back?

You are still better with an external drive and making OS images. Then you can get back up in half an hour.



Is this hard to carry around? 1TB USB 3.0 WD Passport that I bought some years ago.