Solved My Recovery Drive (D:) Almost Full.....

[papaniz]

Hey there,

I'm just wondering about the recovery drive I have, the (D drive is almost full, and I was just wondering what should I do when it runs out of space? My friend has his recovery drive full as well and needs help, which is why I'm posting this. I was told not to modify or even touch anything in the drive because it is a backup of the system or something? Well I don't know what to do because my friend's recovery drive is full and he's getting a notification on his taskbar about it, I have 1Gb left and was just wondering as well since most of mine is used up. Should I just leave it? Thanks for the help.

 

[XweAponX]

I'd get a larger drive, and use Acronis or Paragon partition managers to dupe the drive onto the larger partition.

Tell me about it... I started with 250GB Hard drives in my XP system, when I Upgraded to Win 7 I had to get 320 GB drives, then 500 GB drives, and finally 1 TB drives. Right now I have 2 500 giggers, they are totally packed... Last month I bought another 1TB drive, it is totally full now. I just don't know where the space goes, I absulutely require everything I have saved, cos I build and repair computers, I have to keep an exhaustive library of Drivers, OS's. I even run a program that allows me to read my Mac partitions as if they are attached right to my PC.

If you are not sure about what you need... And if your backup is bursting at the seams, then do this:

1) Check your system - Make sure it is in absolute perfect order, no little glitches. If that is the case then:

2) Delete your entire Backup drive. Sounds drastic, but if you are in no danger, you should be OK.

3) Once you clear ouot all that space, just make one Brand New Backup, and then tell your Backup program to make a Backup ONLY When you tell it to.

Cos it counds like you have some kind of Automatic Backup going, I'd dhut it off, do it manually, cos if you keep going, your backup partition will soon get totyally filled.

Ideally, you want to keep all of your drives about 1/4 full for best computer performance. Now myself, I keep them 80% full, causes me a lot of problems cos I'm a packrat, cant affor 6 2 TB drives to move all my storage onto, so I gotta keep all my archives on sevreral partitions.

If your system is working well and you have at least half of your system drive free - Then delete your backup drive.

But only if there is nothing on that drive that is not on your System drives... If you are saving a lot of Documents and ISO images and pictures, you may want to keep only those on a separate drive, other than your System backup drive.

 

[seavixen32]

Hey there,

I'm just wondering about the recovery drive I have, the (D drive is almost full, and I was just wondering what should I do when it runs out of space? My friend has his recovery drive full as well and needs help, which is why I'm posting this. I was told not to modify or even touch anything in the drive because it is a backup of the system or something? Well I don't know what to do because my friend's recovery drive is full and he's getting a notification on his taskbar about it, I have 1Gb left and was just wondering as well since most of mine is used up. Should I just leave it? Thanks for the help.

Can you post a screenshot of your disk management layout?

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/9733-screenshots-files-upload-post-seven-forums.html

Your recovery drive will be less than 20GB and should not be used for anything other than recovering your system and should never be used for storing your personal data.

If you delete the recovery drive and you haven't created a set of recovery discs you have no way of getting your system back without a Windows disc if everything goes pear-shaped.

 

[kado897]

I think that once the recovery drive has been created it is not changed. It is used to return the PC to its factory state after all.

 

[pooch]

Hey there,

I'm just wondering about the recovery drive I have, the (D drive is almost full, and I was just wondering what should I do when it runs out of space? My friend has his recovery drive full as well and needs help, which is why I'm posting this. I was told not to modify or even touch anything in the drive because it is a backup of the system or something? Well I don't know what to do because my friend's recovery drive is full and he's getting a notification on his taskbar about it, I have 1Gb left and was just wondering as well since most of mine is used up. Should I just leave it? Thanks for the help.

There are two things you can do
1/Go to Control Panel, Backup and Restore. Have a look at the two snips I have posted for details.

 

[kado897]

I think the op is talking about the 12GB recovery partition not the drive he is using for his backups.

 

[pooch]

I think the op is talking about the 12GB recovery partition not the drive he is using for his backups.

Oooops!! then my bad

 

[kado897]

Perhaps the op can post back and confirm which drive it is.

 

[pooch]

I think that once the recovery drive has been created it is not changed. It is used to return the PC to its factory state after all.

This is my understanding, so it should not fill up. Hence my misunderstanding lol

 

[seavixen32]

I have asked the OP to post a screenie as I think we all strongly suspect he and his friend have been using their respective recovery partitions to store personal data.

The key for me was when he mentioned he'd only got 1GB of drive space left, which with today's large drives will take some doing, but on a 12GB recovery drive it won't take very long.

 

[kado897]

Good idea.

 

[whs]

Hey there,

I'm just wondering about the recovery drive I have, the (D drive is almost full, and I was just wondering what should I do when it runs out of space? My friend has his recovery drive full as well and needs help, which is why I'm posting this. I was told not to modify or even touch anything in the drive because it is a backup of the system or something? Well I don't know what to do because my friend's recovery drive is full and he's getting a notification on his taskbar about it, I have 1Gb left and was just wondering as well since most of mine is used up. Should I just leave it? Thanks for the help.

The recovery partition contains an image of the system that serves for reinstallation. That partition should not be touched.

If it fills up, then that is due to user error - e.g. if the user does data backup and does not change the default drive letter which is D.

The recovery partition is usually small - about 8 to 10GB. In that case a 1GB free space is sufficient (10% is minimum before it shows a red bar in Computer).

If it fills up, you should open the partition and move all files that are not part of the system recovery setup.

 

[papaniz]

I have never actually used it for any personal things, I will get the screenshots in a couple minutes because I'm not home right now. My apologies for the late reply, but I always stored things in my documents and installed in my system drive. I never actually looked into my recovery drive up until now. So I don't think I'm using it for personal use.

 

[kado897]

This is my HP recovery partition. Untouched in 12 months.

 

[papaniz]

Okay here's my screenshots, actually had more than I explained, but still running out of space pretty quickly. Screenshots are messed up though...I believe you can just zoom in and look into it. Click onto the picture twice and it'll take you to a separate page and click to zoom in. I don't know why it came out that way...

 

[kado897]

That looks similar to mine if I show system files. It shouldn't get any fuller over time.

 

[Britton30]

The HP recovery partition is used to restore your computer to out-of-box state, with all the bloatware and various trial software. Its size should remain the same, is isn't a back-up.
If you system is fine and running just how you want it right now, format the D: partition and make an actual back-up image there with Macrium Reflect. You should also make a copy of your back-up on some external device or DVD's in case your HDD crashes.

See this tutorial for the partition steps: How to Delete a Partition or Volume in Windows 7

Your current D: partition appears to be about the correct size for recovery. If your friend's is filling up, it is due to his error or it is a different type of PC and partition.

 

[seavixen32]

There appears to be nothing untoward in your Recovery partition and 1.91GB free out of 11.4GB is normal so I think you are worrying unnecessarily.

Providing you have some means of recovering your system by either a recovery disc or Windows DVD you can if you wish delete the partition (after creating a system image backup) and extend the Windows partition to take up the free space.

Also, have you created any recovery discs in the event of an emergency?

 

[kado897]

I would say just leave it alone. It is a backup of last resort. Get yourself an external HDD and save any backups there with Windows backup and a third party backup of your choice Macrium Reflect FREE Edition is a good one.

 

[whs]

Your recovery partition is normal. HP always cuts it very close. Other manufacturers leave more room, but that is not really necessary. As long as the free space is 10%+, you are OK. There is nothing to worry about.