Using Vista..freeing up d drive

[Guest]

I have Vista and my D drive is almost full. I believe its because of backups.
I bought more Ram, deleted files and finally tryed to delete all before my
latest restore point. That didn't work. Didn't even seem to run! I have 140
gig left on my hard drive and 470 mg on my D..Please help!!!

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

I have Vista and my D drive is almost full. I believe its because of
backups. I bought more Ram, deleted files and finally tryed to delete
all before my latest restore point. That didn't work. Didn't even
seem to run! I have 140 gig left on my hard drive and 470 mg on my
D..Please help!!!

Yes, 470 milligrams is very little. ;-)

Please help us to help you. What is your D drive? Is it a separate hard
drive? A partition of your only hard drive? Something else?

How big is it? What do you use it for? Do you run a program that puts
backups there?

What files did you delete? From what drive?

 

[DP]

Yes, 470 milligrams is very little. ;-)

Please help us to help you. What is your D drive? Is it a separate hard
drive? A partition of your only hard drive? Something else?

Ken:
What I've gathered from a lot of posts here is that it seems like several
big-name computer makers are creating D partitions, where they then store
data needed to restore a computer to its fresh-from-the-factory settings.
Kind of like the restore CD you would get from Dell, Gateway, Packard Bell
(R.I.P.).
I think these partitions are made just big enough to hold the data with a
few extra milligrams left over. That seems to be the common thread in posts
I've read in recent weeks.
I'm guessing that's the case with the OP's machine, but I could be wrong.

I assume that drive can be wiped clean if you don't think you'll ever have
to restore factory settings. But I guess it's also possible that the ONLY
copy of the OS installation is on that partition instead of on separate
media, so someone should be very careful before deleting.

 

[Rock]

I have Vista and my D drive is almost full. I believe its because of
backups.
I bought more Ram, deleted files and finally tryed to delete all before my
latest restore point. That didn't work. Didn't even seem to run! I have
140
gig left on my hard drive and 470 mg on my D..Please help!!!

You believe it's because of backups? Why do you believe that? What
backups? What files are occupying the space? For that matter what is the
D: drive? What is it's capacity?

Making Good Newsgroup Posts

 

[Guest]

Yes, 470 milligrams is very little. ;-)

Please help us to help you. What is your D drive? Is it a separate hard
drive? A partition of your only hard drive? Something else?

How big is it? What do you use it for? Do you run a program that puts
backups there?

What files did you delete? From what drive?

 

[Guest]

Hi;
I have the same problem. D drive is almost full and would like to know
which files I have to store in the D drive. Also, I would like to free up the
D drive without affecting my computer. This is what it reads on the D drive,
Recovery D: 3.42 MB free of 9.99 GB.
Thanks
Jim

 

[Guest]

I have a similar problem with my D drive. I have a 400GB Advent PC, 200Gb on
C drive, and 200Gb on D drive. When I upgraded to Vista (I wanted the
backup facilities), I obviously dumped the C drive to the D drive. The D
drive filled up so quickly that I was frankly amazed. It slowed the backup
process, and Norton scans so much that they were taking almost 2 hours to
complete! I therefore bought a 400GB external hard drive, and now dump to
that. Everything is now much better, except that I cannot completely empty
the D drive. The drive indicates 'folder empty' when I go into 'My
computer', but the contents still indicate that some 60 GB is 'in use'. Does
anyone know how to completely empty the D drive (since it is still slowing
the Norton scans) please?

 

[Guest]

Hi Fevren (or Rock),
Thanks for the suggestion. Sounds so simple now, reformatting did occur to
me, but sounded a tad drastic and I was somewhat worried about the
consequences! Anyway, have completed the format operation, now my D drive is
as it was when I purchased the PC (and it has also made me find out how to
copy my most important files to the D drive). As a computer novice, such
information and techniques are not easily found, and it is reassuring to know
that helpful people like you are 'out there'. Thanks to you experts, using
computers (to the uninitiated) is so much easier. Cheers, pal!

 

[D-Full]

Couldn't you just format or delete D:?

 

[SallyL]

Yes, 470 milligrams is very little. ;-)

Please help us to help you. What is your D drive? Is it a separate hard
drive? A partition of your only hard drive? Something else?

How big is it? What do you use it for? Do you run a program that puts
backups there?

What files did you delete? From what drive?

hi there..
it seems that everybody's D: drive is full but mine is C: drive. Wats wrong?

my C: drive has only 10%-20% left but my D: drive has about 80% (used to be
90% but now 80% bcos i put some of the files like videos, music, documents
files to D: drive to free my C: drive) . i just want to know which is
actually a backup or restore drive? which one that windows always use alot?
it seems to me is my C: drive. r there any problem? how to use D: drive more
to make my C: drive lesser? my notebook is NEC VersaA2200 AMD Turion 64
mobile technology.

thanks.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

hi there..
it seems that everybody's D: drive is full but mine is C: drive. Wats wrong?

I have no idea, since you've omitted the essential information
describing your problem. See below.

my C: drive has only 10%-20% left

Exactly how big is your C: drive?

but my D: drive has about 80%

And exactly how big is your D: drive.

(used to be
90% but now 80% bcos i put some of the files like videos, music, documents
files to D: drive to free my C: drive) . i just want to know which is
actually a backup or restore drive?

Probably neither.

which one that windows always use alot?

Normally C:.

it seems to me is my C: drive. r there any problem? how to use D: drive more
to make my C: drive lesser? my notebook is NEC VersaA2200 AMD Turion 64
mobile technology.

It's very difficult to be sure of anything with so little information,
but I'll take a few guesses:

1. Your computer came with a single hard drive that was partitioned
into two pieces called C: and D:. Think of your drive as a two-drawer
filing cabinet.

2. Since 90% of D: was free, D: is probably not any kind of recovery
partition, but just a second place for you to store your files.

If the above is correct, then it's up to you to use D: instead of C:
for whatever you want. Just as with the filing cabinet, if you put
everything into the top drawer and leave the bottom one empty, you
will run into problems. You say you "put some of the files like
videos, music, documents files to D: drive to free my C: drive."
That's good. Continue doing more of the same.

 

[SallyL]

I have no idea, since you've omitted the essential information
describing your problem. See below.




Exactly how big is your C: drive?




And exactly how big is your D: drive.





Probably neither.




Normally C:.




It's very difficult to be sure of anything with so little information,
but I'll take a few guesses:

1. Your computer came with a single hard drive that was partitioned
into two pieces called C: and D:. Think of your drive as a two-drawer
filing cabinet.

2. Since 90% of D: was free, D: is probably not any kind of recovery
partition, but just a second place for you to store your files.

If the above is correct, then it's up to you to use D: instead of C:
for whatever you want. Just as with the filing cabinet, if you put
everything into the top drawer and leave the bottom one empty, you
will run into problems. You say you "put some of the files like
videos, music, documents files to D: drive to free my C: drive."
That's good. Continue doing more of the same.

hi Ken

what info u need to know about my laptop?

meanwhile, ive 1GB memory. drive C: has 18.6GB & drive D: also 18.6GB. I
believe both drives share that 1GB laptop memory overall & my hardrives
memory is 40GB.

anymore pls help? should i add in another 1GB to have 2GB memory or just
leave it just like tat? thanks

 

[Charlie Tame]

hi Ken

what info u need to know about my laptop?

meanwhile, ive 1GB memory. drive C: has 18.6GB & drive D: also 18.6GB. I
believe both drives share that 1GB laptop memory overall & my hardrives
memory is 40GB.

anymore pls help? should i add in another 1GB to have 2GB memory or just
leave it just like tat? thanks

Sally, memory and drive space are both measured in Gigabytes but are not
at all related.

Your "C" drive and "D" drive are probably the same physical entity but
are two different "Partitions".

When you buy an operating system installed by a manufacturer (OEM) they
often do not supply a backup copy of the operating system. Instead they
put it on a second "Partition". The default drive letter (Historically)
is C and so usually the copy does on the next one, D.

You should find the instructions for making a DVD copy of this, usually
called "Making recovery disks" on the maker's website. You may be able
to order recovery disks from them online. You should do one or the other
because if the hard drive ever fails BOTH partitions may go out and then
you have no Vista. Until then you should try and avoid using that
partition at all. Microsoft will not help at all with OEM installs, they
sell their product to the maker at a substantial discount and the maker
agrees to take full responsibility for user support. (Most) people here
will try to help but can't do much if you lose the operating system
altogether.

You Laptop maker should have the full instructions, if not someone here
will try to help you find them, I can't stress enough that you need to
get a copy of the OS on something separate from your hard disk, then if
you want you can use that partition, but be aware that if you ever have
to use the maker's recovery system it will literally put the machine
back to how it came out of the box, everything you did before then will
be lost.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

hi Ken

what info u need to know about my laptop?

meanwhile, ive 1GB memory. drive C: has 18.6GB & drive D: also 18.6GB. I
believe both drives share that 1GB laptop memory overall & my hardrives
memory is 40GB.

anymore pls help? should i add in another 1GB to have 2GB memory or just
leave it just like tat? thanks

OK, so you have a 40GB drive which has been partitioned into two equal
parts, called C: and D:. As I suggested, neither appears to be a
backup or restore partition, but it's simply like the two-drawer
filing cabinet I pointed out above. Which partition you put any
particular file in is up to you. If you always just accept the default
and put everything in C: it's not a surprise that you're running out
of space on C: while having lots left on D:. You need to start moving
some files to D: (data files only, please; you can't move program
files) and start putting files there in the future instead of on C:

By the way, it's important to realize that these two "drives," C: and
D:, are actually not separate drives, but just partitions--pieces of
the single hard drive you have. That makes using D: as a backup of C:
a very poor choice. It's better than no backup at all, but just
barely. It leaves you susceptible to simultaneous loss of the original
and backup to many of the most common dangers: severe power glitches,
nearby lightning strikes, virus attacks, even theft of the computer.
Real backup needs to be on media stored externally to the computer.

Finally, regarding your question "should i add in another 1GB to have
2GB memory," that has nothing to do with your use of the D: partition,
but the answer is that you need to determine whether the performance
of your computer is adequate for you. For most people running Windows
Vista, 1GB is not sufficient, and 2GB makes a substantial improvement,
but the choice is yours.