Low Disk Space in Recovery "D" Vista OS

[Guest]

My computer alerts me that I have low disk space in recovery "D". Recovery
shows 1% of disk space left. How to I correct this. This is my first post
and I'm a beginner at this.

 

[Cal Bear '66]

Use Disk Manager to delete the drive letter and you won't see the alert again.

Control Panel (Classic view) > Administrative Tools > Computer Management > Disk
Management

 

[DevilsPGD]

In message <[email protected]> Mart

My computer alerts me that I have low disk space in recovery "D". Recovery
shows 1% of disk space left. How to I correct this. This is my first post
and I'm a beginner at this.

http://www.google.ca/search?q=turn+off+low+disk+space+warning

Short version;

* Run the Registry Editor (REGEDIT.EXE).
* Open HKEY_CURRENT_USER\ Software\ Microsoft\ Windows\
CurrentVersion\ Policies\ Explorer.
* If it's not there, create a DWORD value and call it
NoLowDiskSpaceChecks.
* Double-click on NoLowDiskSpaceChecks, and enter the value 1, and
press OK.

(Insert your own "Editing the registry may cause locusts to spew forth
from your computer" warning here)

Unfortunately I can't find a way to do this on a per-volume basis, only
a master on/off switch.

 

[AJR]

Hold on a minute Mart. By "...recovery "D". Recovery..." are you
referring to a "Restore (Recovery) Partition" - did it come with the
computer and is (D) labelled as such?

Most OEMs (equipment manufacturers) include a restore/recovery partition on
the computer. This partition contains "everything" on the computer at the
time it was manufactured and is used to restore the computer to it's
original state- in some instances a CD/DVD is also provided. Recovery is by
booting from a CD or "Hit the F11 key...." message at boot.
Some OEMs make the partition hidden and/or inaccessible to protect it.

Documentation you received should explain your opriton regarding the
partition - some OEMs fprovide a utility to copy the partition contents to
CD/DVD and a means to "recoup' the space.

If it is an actual restore/recovery partition you should not utilize it in
any way (copy data, install stuff, etc.).

 

[Guest]

Hi. I know exactly what you are talking about. I too have a Vista Ultimate OS
and when I click on "computer" and all the hardware shows up such as "C:",
"E:", etc., there is one that is labeled Recovery "D:", and there is a red
indicator showing the amount of space used (just like the green one next to
hard drive "C:").

At this time, The green one for "C:" harddrive indicates very little space
is being used. However, the "D:" drive indicator is red, and is almost all
the way to the end, which means I too, have only the "1%" of disk space left
that you mentioned.

I am afraid to delete these files and have found nothing about this disk in
the system's book.
please let me know if you find out anything about this disk. Thanks, Mayjacks

 

[Cal Bear '66]

Your D drive is a Recovery partition set up at the factory to enable you to
restore your computer to a factory shipped condition. You should have
instructions to show you how to make Recovery DVDs from it, and then you can
delete the partition if you want and expand the C partition to take up the
space. You should not use this partition for anything.

You can get rid of the low space alert by deleting the drive letter in Disc
Management if you want. This will not harm the data.

 

[Guest]

I don't know much about this stuff but I do agree with AJR that Recovery D
should not be touched. On my Dell that I have now and on my HP and Compaq
that I had in the past, Recovery D came with the computer and you don't add
or change anything on it, you just use it to restore your system.
My question though, I have seen others post messages about thier D
Recovery drive being filled to capacity. But how does it get filled anyway?
Are people installing things into the D recovery drive? I have never had the
size of mine change on me. It is 9.99 GB with 6.14 Gb free. So I was just
wondering, why people have that happen, am I supposed to be putting back up
things in there or something? Have I not been using this right all these
years? Like I said, i really don't know much about this stuff, so I am
asking. Thanks

 

[Michael Palumbo]

Your D drive is a Recovery partition set up at the factory to enable you
to restore your computer to a factory shipped condition. You should have
instructions to show you how to make Recovery DVDs from it, and then you
can delete the partition if you want and expand the C partition to take up
the space. You should not use this partition for anything.

You can get rid of the low space alert by deleting the drive letter in
Disc Management if you want. This will not harm the data.

However, deleting the drive letter will cause the recovery environment (Win
RE) to no longer have access to the partition. So if you don't have the
data copied to DVD(s) and something goes wrong and you need to do a system
recovery, you're stuck.

This is the very reason the drive is left visible, else the OEM would have
simply excluded a drive letter as they have for the other utility partitions
that are most likely present, but unavailable when the OS is running.

Mic

 

[Crystal]

Hi, I'm having the same problem. I finally got on the HP hotline :
www.welcome.hp.com/country/contact_us.html

All the data is going into the D drive and it is suppose to be going in the
C drive. After talking with two technicians and not being able to find my
folder with my name in this drive, I was told I would have to use the
recovery disk that I have made after buying the PC.

That means I have to transfer all my data to an external drive, do the
recovery discs and then reapply my data. Vista still has bugs..........Hope
the service pact will take care of them. Good luck phoning them, they are
great.........

 

[Mike Hall - MVP]

Hi, I'm having the same problem. I finally got on the HP hotline :
www.welcome.hp.com/country/contact_us.html

All the data is going into the D drive and it is suppose to be going in
the
C drive. After talking with two technicians and not being able to find my
folder with my name in this drive, I was told I would have to use the
recovery disk that I have made after buying the PC.

That means I have to transfer all my data to an external drive, do the
recovery discs and then reapply my data. Vista still has
bugs..........Hope
the service pact will take care of them. Good luck phoning them, they are
great.........

Backups always try to find a drive other than C because backing up onto the
boot drive is just not sense.

Whatever backup program you were running has looked for a drive other than
the boot drive, but unfortunately has tried to stuff the files into the
small amount of space needed for the recovery drive NOT to pop up low disk
space warnings.

Get yourself either a one touch backup solution or an external USB hard
drive and Acronis TrueImage.

If you can't afford this, use the backup facility in your CD/DVD burning
suite.

In the meantime, remove any files that you have backed up into your recovery
partition. Be careful not to remove anything the manufacturer put there..

--
Mike Hall - MVP
How to construct a good post..
http://dts-l.com/goodpost.htm
How to use the Microsoft Product Support Newsgroups..
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?pr=newswhelp&style=toc
Mike's Window - My Blog..
http://msmvps.com/blogs/mikehall/default.aspx

 

[Mike Hall - MVP]

Hi, Mart. You did not tell us what OS (operating system) is your
computer running. Vista Basic?,Vista Home Premium?, Vista Ultimate? Is
it 32-bit, or 64-bit? You can look them up from your owner manual ( if
you don't know how to do that on your computer ).
Mine is a Home premium 32-bit. I have 2 hard drives and 1 "removable"
DVD-RW drive.
Hard drive #1 is called OS (C )which is a System drive
#2 is called D: which is local drive
The removable drive is self-explanatory. You know, for playing dvd and
cd.
OS (C) is where all my programs are stored, which is why it has 99.2
GB of space.
D: local drive is where my laptop uses for "files backup", and it has
9.99 GB of space. If you have the same OS as I do, this IS the one you
CAN TOUCH. You can delete files you don't want , if you know what you
are doing. If you don't, and since you have only 1% of space left, there
is one quick fix --- for now. It's by compressing what are in the D
drive. Here is how : --
1.) click START ( the logo at the bottom left corner )
2.) a panel will appear. On the right side look for Computer, click
that.
3.) a window will show all your disk drives. Look for your D drive.
Right click on that drive, and click Properties
4.) you should see a pie chart showing how much free space it has left.
If it is as you said (1%), look for the word COMPRESS, check the box in
front of the word. You should see the pie chart has changed, giving you
more space.
5.) also, look for the box that says DISK CLEANUP, click that.
6.) another window will show up, just click OK on that window.
7.) a 3rd window will show up, click DELETE FILES.
That's it --- for now. Do the disk cleanup on a regular basis. The rest
is up to you to post questions and learn . Good LUck. Please post the
result, thank you.

This is some of the worst advice I have ever seen in a newsgroup..

--
Mike Hall - MVP
How to construct a good post..
http://dts-l.com/goodpost.htm
How to use the Microsoft Product Support Newsgroups..
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?pr=newswhelp&style=toc
Mike's Window - My Blog..
http://msmvps.com/blogs/mikehall/default.aspx

 

[Mike Hall - MVP]

This forum is for people to help and learn from one another. Criticism
is counter-productive at best. If you disagree with my idea, point out
the flaws of my idea, so that we can all learn. If you have a much
better way to solve Mart's pressing problem, a way a "beginner" can
understand and follow, tell him, so that he can benefit from your
wisdom. So far, you have done none of the above.

Then you should look a little harder because I did give advice to the OP.

--
Mike Hall - MVP
How to construct a good post..
http://dts-l.com/goodpost.htm
How to use the Microsoft Product Support Newsgroups..
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?pr=newswhelp&style=toc
Mike's Window - My Blog..
http://msmvps.com/blogs/mikehall/default.aspx

 

[Mike Hall - MVP]

What advice ? What makes you think he knows what is " one touch backup
solution "
What makes you think he knows how to do backup to cds?
What makes you think he knows how to "remove" files? What makes you
think he knows how to tell which file is which?
Does the word BEGINNER means anything to you? Forgot how it was when
you were one of those --- beginner ?

A visit to any decent computer store will reveal the identity of a one touch
backup solution. They come with backup software.

An external USB hard drive enclosure will also be found at the store, and
can be a cheaper alternative to the one touch type..

Backing up with a CD/DVD burning utility is covered in the utility's help
files, very often in the form of a video tutorial..

The best person for identifying the names of backed up files is the person
who created them..

OK. What you NEVER do is compress a recovery partition. In fact, it is not a
good idea to compress ANY partition..

You explained your machine configuration, but there is a 99% chance the the
OP's machine configuration is not the same as yours, so any attempt to
follow what you said would end up in total confusion..

--
Mike Hall - MVP
How to construct a good post..
http://dts-l.com/goodpost.htm
How to use the Microsoft Product Support Newsgroups..
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?pr=newswhelp&style=toc
Mike's Window - My Blog..
http://msmvps.com/blogs/mikehall/default.aspx

 

[Mike Hall - MVP]

No, sir, I did not. It came that way. I click Computer, and the window
will show :

Hard Disk Drives (2) ________________

(Icon here) OS (C ( showing total GB, and how many left )

(Icon here) Local Disk (D ( showing total GB, and how many left)

Devices with Removable Storage (1) ____________

(Icon here) DVD RW Drive (E

That's how I will see. I'm sorry, I have no idea about those smiling
faces, I did not do it.

David

Check that you do have two physical drives by right clicking on 'Computer'
in the start menu, and selecting 'Manage'. In the window that opens, click
on 'Disk Management' under the 'Storage' heading.

If you do indeed have two drives installed, they will show as drive 0 and
drive 1.

If you can see only drive 0, you will see that it is partitioned into two
parts (C and D)

Some manufacturers (Sony is one of them) do send out machines where the
drive has been partitioned with a reasonably large C drive, and a much
larger D drive such that the user can save large multimedia files.

However, in most cases, the D drive is very small, around 10gb. This means
that the D drive is in fact the recovery partition and should not be
touched.

Backup programs are written to look for any drive letter other than the
letter being used for the boot drive. So, if the only other letter available
is tagged for the recovery partition, it will be selected. Backup programs
don't care what is on the target drive, or how much space is actually
available..

In my opinion, the 'fault' lies squarely with the computer manufacturers,
pumping out computers which look to be well specified but in reality are
only 'adequate'.

--
Mike Hall - MVP
How to construct a good post..
http://dts-l.com/goodpost.htm
How to use the Microsoft Product Support Newsgroups..
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?pr=newswhelp&style=toc
Mike's Window - My Blog..
http://msmvps.com/blogs/mikehall/default.aspx

 

[AJR]

Frizzie - There is not need to "tinker" with the restore partition - space
wise or it's files (do not save data to the partition). The restore
partition is already compressed and if necessasry requires the "extra" space
to perform a restoration.

Check your documentation. HP usually provides an utility to copy the
restore partition and create a restore CD/DVD - in which case you can
recapture the D partition

Major problem with restore partition and disks is that restoration is to the
state of the computer at time of purchse - meaning that application/data
added or installed over a period of time are lost unless backups are being
maintained.

data.

 

[AJR]

Frizzie - As I mentioned in my previous post - recovery partitions and/or
disks represent the installation at that period of time. The longer you have
the computer the more changes you made are lost on restoration.

The simplest backup - providing you have the Vista dvd and program disks, is
to just backup data. Restoration is complex since the OS and individual
programs must be reinstalled along with the data.

Having said all that - you cannot "go wrong" with Acronis - I use it on two
desktops (one belongs to "She Who Must Be Obeyed - commomly called wife and
under no circumstances is THAT computer to go down!) and one laptop

Acronis is all you need - it will backup on schedule to a second internal
drive or external drive and, if you desire, it will create a restore
partiton and keeps it up to date with incremental or differential backups.

Acronis will also create a bootable disk which contains a copy of Acronis to
restore a dead computer. In addition, if you have Acronis create a recovery
partition, it will modify the master boot record so that, at boot, you will
have the option to do a restore by hitting a "F" key - usually F11.

Even though you create a restore partition, always have backups to a
separate internal HD or an external HD - for obvious reasons - if you lose
your primary drive with a restore partion you are in trouble.

BTW - if you are using Acronis I would not backup the "D" drive/partition.
One other thing - do not confuse drives versus partitions - as you probably
know, you can have one drive divided into several partitions e.g. C, D and E
or three separate drives C, D, and E.

 

[kimjiongs]

Sorry to reply here, I know this thread has been a long time, but to this problem it is better to choose 3rd party partition software, like AOMEI Partition Assistant, Gparted, Partition Wizard.But AOMEI Partition Assistant could directly allocate free space from other partition to the destination partition: http://www.extend-partition.com/help/allocate-free-space.html