Backup

[Guest]

I recently bought my computer and it has a partition of the HardDisk which
has 10GB of space.My back ups are supposed to be stored on this drive.Within
a week it's full i don't know how.The actual back up folder on it is only
1.28GB and all other files are in totality 3.14GB.So details of the rest of
the space are void.What can be the problem?

 

[Rick Rogers]

Hi,

If this is the recovery partition supplied by the manufacturer, then this is
normal. It should be nearly full. If you installed Vista on a 10GB drive,
then that is way too small and you need to purchase something larger and
start over.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
My thoughts http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com

 

[Richard Urban]

That 10 gig partition is likely your manufacturers "recovery" partition,
which is to be used in case of catastrophic operating system failure. You
should not, under any circumstances, alter this partition, nor should you
use it for file storage. It is meant for the original system backup - not
for you to store your backups.

If you read your documentation again I believe that you will see that you
have misinterpreted what you saw the first time through.

--


Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

 

[Guest]

Hey!
thank you so much for the advice.This is the drive supplied by the
manufacturer for recovery purposes.I haven't installed vista on this.But i
keep getting a notification that this drive is full(5 MB free of 10GB).And
that notification is very troublesome.What shalll i do?

 

[Richard Urban]

If you have already installed/copied files to that drive partition you
should delete only those files that you KNOW that *you* placed there. Then,
don't touch it again.

Some manufacturers make this partition a hidden partition that only their
recovery routine can access. Then a person is not tempted to muck around
with it.

--


Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

 

[John]

Thanks for pointing out that you are not running Vista Backup.

When you go to Vista and use the features it has, the recommendation I've
seen is to have at least 250GB. I ran out and bought a 320GB drive. Vista
has all kinds of sound and video things you can do. They take lots of
space. Though you obviously don't do it now with your small drive, Internet
opportunities are going to present themselves and you will then need that
space. Or, to say it another way, you're not going to like to have to
upgrade your disk size mid-stream!

And understand that a partition for backup is only good for file recovery.
If your disk dies, you are dead--completely! I bought an external backup
drive a couple of years ago when 80GB was a lot and a USB connection was
fast. Today those backup drives are hundreds of GBs and they use superfast
SATA connections, for about the same price. The advantage is that most
computer failures won't reach to the external drive--even moreso if you
completely unhook the external backup drive after you run your backup. The
Vista Ultimate Backup system is supposed to enable you to recover from a
disk crash (I've had three in the last twelve years), but it won't do that
from a backup on the only disk drive you have.

I know this doesn't apply to you, but I ran out of space on my backup device
with Vista Ultimate Backup. Somehow, it automatically freed up more room.
I can't seem to duplicate it now, but I think that is because you can only
do it with options from the "disk full" error boxes. It seemed to work
fine, though I complain that I can't see what it's doing for my confidence.

We had partitions and Partition Magic years ago because of smaller systems
and corrupt systems. Disk drives today recover automatically so you won't
know you had a problem, and with 320GB you don't need anything else.
Computer manufacturers hide their goodies in partitions; they provide
upgrades and support. I prefer to install my own OS and have better control
over my system, though this approach is not for the faint-hearted. In doing
that, I would prefer my system be clean and not have a partition any more.

John

 

[DanR]

Some manufacturers make this partition a hidden partition that only their

recovery routine can access. Then a person is not tempted to muck around
with it.

--


Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

I notice that Dell hides the recovery partition and HP does not hide it.
Seems to me that if the recovery routine works equally well with it hidden /
not hidden... than it should be hidden. Why tempt people to use this D:\
recovery partition.

 

[Cal Bear '66]

This drive (D: ?) is a RECOVERY partition set up by the computer manufacturer to
enable you to return your computer to a factory shipped condition. It is NOT a
backup partition and should not be used for anything else other than to RESTORE
your computer to it's original condition. You should have been provided with
instructions on how to make RECOVERY DVDs from this partition. And then you
could delete the partition and expand C: to take up the space.

If the low space warning alerts bother you, you can unassign a drive letter in
Disk Management.