Point Recycle Bin to another drive

[GWT]

I have two hard drives. C: drive and a D: drive.

Is there any way to point the Recycle Bin away from the C:\ drive to the D:\ drive in Windows 7 Professional?

Thanks

 

[rap33042]

Welcome to SF!
And Happy New Year!

• Right-click on the recycle Bin
• Choose Properties
• On the Properties sheet you can Disable or Set Custom Sizes for individual drives

Recycle Bin storage size - Vista Forums


Hope this helps!

 

[Brink]

Hello GWT,

Sorry, but no. Each hard drive will have it's own $Recycle.bin file that it uses.

Internal HDD's $Recycle.bin file are all linked and display in the main Recycle Bin, where external or removable drive's files are usually deleted permanently and do not enter the Recyle Bin.

 

[logicearth]

There is no reason to move the Recycle Bin. When files are deleted they are not moved nor a write operation performed. The MFT is updated with a "pending" delete thus appears then in the Recycle Bin by Windows Explorer. There is no disk operations other then updating the MFT.

 

[FliGi7]

Maybe he leaves a lot of residual files in the recycle bin instead of deleting them and wants to clear some space on his main drive? That's the only reason I can think of someone wanting to move the recycle bin. If so, a better idea might be just to create a folder on the second drive that will act as the recycle bin and to just move all of the files you would have normally deleted into that folder.

Or, if this is not the reason, then nothing I said matter.

 

[GWT]

Well the C:/ is a 64GB SSD and there's not a whole lot of room on it.

Plus I want to minimize writes to it, so I'd want the deleted files pointing to the D:/ drive where if I need to recover (within a short period of time) them later, then I can do so.

 

[logicearth]

Moving the Recycle Bin will not assist with any of that.

 

[Ztruker]

Can't be done. A recycle bin is tied to the drive it's on. Can't work any other way, as logicearth said (sort of).

You can reduce the size on the recycle bin or turn it off completely. Depends on whether you ever use it or not. I can almost guarantee that as soon as you turn it off you'll delete a file accidentally and wish it was in the recycle bin. Probably some corollary to Murphy's Law.

 

[GWT]

Can't be done. A recycle bin is tied to the drive it's on. Can't work any other way, as logicearth said (sort of).

So there nothing that can be done? There's no way around it?

I have a file I want to delete on D:\ and when I delete it, it will go to the C:\ drive (a write) and produce excessive amounts of writes on the C:\ drive because the Recycle Bin can't be bypassed on C:\ and there are a lot of files (at times) that I wind up deleting. I mean, multi-gigabytes worth.

You can reduce the size on the recycle bin or turn it off completely. Depends on whether you ever use it or not. I can almost guarantee that as soon as you turn it off you'll delete a file accidentally and wish it was in the recycle bin. Probably some corollary to Murphy's Law.

No doubt. I was considering that but inevitably that will happen.

 

[logicearth]

No file is written to the C: drive when you delete a file on D: or vise versa.

 

[Brink]

This can help give more details on the Recycle Bin in Windows. Be sure to only reference the parts related to Windows 7.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recycle_Bin_(Windows)

 

[GWT]

No file is written to the C: drive when you delete a file on D: or vise versa.

So where does the deleted file go in D?

And can it later be recovered?

 

[logicearth]

No file is written to the C: drive when you delete a file on D: or vise versa.

So where does the deleted file go in D?

And can it later be recovered?

It doesn't go any where. The file stays put. The MFT is updated to show it was deleted and set to appear in D:\$RECYCLE.BIN\[USER_SID_FOLDER_NAME] if the file was deleted on the D: drive. There is no write operation on the file itself.

 

[GWT]

The MFT is updated to show it was deleted and set to appear in D:\$RECYCLE.BIN\[USER_SID_FOLDER_NAME] if the file was deleted on the D: drive. There is no write operation on the file itself.

Ok that's what I needed to know. Thanks!

Next question. Will the recycle bin on my desktop (located on C:\) show the contents of what's located in D:\$RECYCLE.BIN\[USER_SID_FOLDER_NAME] ?

 

[Brink]

GWT,

Yes it will.

When you delete a file, the file is only marked as deleted on that internal drive and is still actually stored on the same HDD. Any file deleted from any internal drive will now be listed in that specific drive's $RECYCLE.BIN file and also referenced/listed in the main Recyle Bin on your desktop. Only when you empty the Recyle Bin will it free the HDD space used by the file it was deleted from.

 

[GWT]

GWT,

Yes it will.

When you delete a file, the file is only marked as deleted on that internal drive and is still actually stored on the same HDD. Any file deleted from any internal drive will now be listed in that specific drive's $RECYCLE.BIN file and also referenced/listed in the main Recyle Bin on your desktop. Only when you empty the Recyle Bin will it free the HDD space used by the file it was deleted from.

So the bottom line is I technically have two recycle bins, the contents of which don't cross over from one drive (or drive bin) to the other. Correct?

And that they both share the one Recycle Bin icon on the desktop. Correct?

 

[Brink]

I'm not sure it's possible to make it any more basic, but.....


Yes, you have only the one Recycle Bin on the desktop that shows you all of the deleted files in the $RECYCLE.BIN file of each drive.

The deleted files themselves are not stored in the Recycle Bin. They are still stored on their drive just as they were before being deleted until you empty the Recycle Bin. After emptying the Recycle Bin they are permanently gone and removed to free up space on the HDD that you deleted it from.