XP Backup Utility "Ran Out of Disc Space"

[Guest]

I have a 99% full 20Gig C Drive and am having difficulty backing up onto an
external 250Gig drive. While attempting to backup 4 gigs of docs, the
initial backup took about 1 1/2 hrs. Unfortuantely the Backup Verification
was only 10 minutes away from completion when it froze with the following
message..."The Backup utility ran out of disc space creating the catalog
files for the media".

I have no idea what this means? Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks, Jo

 

[Rock]

I have a 99% full 20Gig C Drive and am having difficulty backing up onto an
external 250Gig drive. While attempting to backup 4 gigs of docs, the
initial backup took about 1 1/2 hrs. Unfortuantely the Backup
Verification
was only 10 minutes away from completion when it froze with the following
message..."The Backup utility ran out of disc space creating the catalog
files for the media".

I have no idea what this means? Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Delete items from the filled drive, then do a backup. You should never let
a drive get below 20% free space.

 

[CreateWindow]

Hi Jo,

The catalog is created on your C: drive in your profile.

C:\Documents and Settings\<your login name>\Local Settings\Application
Data\Microsoft\Windows NT\NTBackup

This is a hidden folder.

Just try making some space on your C drive (delete some files you don't
need - then empty the Bin). This will allow the catatalog to be created in
the above location.

Good luck,
CreateWindow - http://mymessagetaker.com

 

[Guest]

I was surprised to see how quickly my C Drive filled. My new camera have
been at work here. This is why I pickup an external 250Gig HD. Now I'm in a
Catch22. ...need to make space to create space. I went into Add/Delete
programs to remove programs that are rarely used. All my docs occupy only
4.1 Gigs of the 20Gig drive. Where is all this memory being used? Any
ideas where else I can quickly create space?

Rock, if a drive should only be filled to 80% capacity it should be
programmed to turn on bells and whistles to alert inexperienced users like me.

Thanks for your input.

Jo

 

[Rock]

I was surprised to see how quickly my C Drive filled. My new camera have
been at work here. This is why I pickup an external 250Gig HD. Now I'm
in a
Catch22. ...need to make space to create space. I went into Add/Delete
programs to remove programs that are rarely used. All my docs occupy only
4.1 Gigs of the 20Gig drive. Where is all this memory being used? Any
ideas where else I can quickly create space?

Rock, if a drive should only be filled to 80% capacity it should be
programmed to turn on bells and whistles to alert inexperienced users like
me.

Jo

Normally it does alert that disk space is getting low, don't know why it
didn't in this case. but still as an aware user, you should be keeping an
eye on that.

Turn off hibernation, run a disk clean up to remove temporary internet
files, after a restart delete the contents of C:\Documents and
Settings\<Username>\Local Settings\Temp folder, reduce the amount of space
allotted to temporary internet files, reduce the amount of space allotted to
system restore points, by default that's set to 12% of the drive which on
large drives is way to much. System restore is only good going back a week
or two at the most, so reduce the allocation to about 750MB or so. To do
this right click My Computer | Properties | System Restore tab. When
available disk space gets below a certain point System Restore is disabled
so it might already by off. Delete the contents of the recycle bin. Are
any Norton home products installed? Some will install a protected recycle
bin. Empty that. After all this you need to look around to see what else
is taking up the space. Only you can see your computer.

See this link and the section on Take out the Trash:
http://www.aumha.org/a/health.php

 

[Rock]

I was surprised to see how quickly my C Drive filled. My new camera have
been at work here. This is why I pickup an external 250Gig HD. Now I'm
in a
Catch22. ...need to make space to create space. I went into Add/Delete
programs to remove programs that are rarely used. All my docs occupy only
4.1 Gigs of the 20Gig drive. Where is all this memory being used? Any
ideas where else I can quickly create space?

Rock, if a drive should only be filled to 80% capacity it should be
programmed to turn on bells and whistles to alert inexperienced users like
me.

You can also copy data files to the external drive without doing a backup.

 

[Guest]

Thanks to both of you IT WORKED!

Last night I deleted as much as I could and actually created 4 Gigs of Free
Space on my formerly full 20 Gig HD. I set the XP Utility to b/u Docs only
(hope I'm not going to regret copying more). I set it with Backup and Verify
w/o Shadowing, clicked Finish (seems strange...why not start?) and went to
bed. This AM I was pleased to find a complete report window on my screen now
with 7.6 Gigs copied and verified....2 hrs/14 mins to backup & 2 hrs/8 mins
to verify.

Almost there. When I opened the new external H/D to view and confirm the
transfer to see for myself, it asked what program I wanted to use to to open
(the file ended in a .bkf). Having no clue I just tried MS Word and an error
alert popped up indicating that there is a Serious Disc Error on this file.
Suggestions?

Thanks, Jo

 

[Jim]

Thanks to both of you IT WORKED!

Last night I deleted as much as I could and actually created 4 Gigs of
Free
Space on my formerly full 20 Gig HD. I set the XP Utility to b/u Docs
only
(hope I'm not going to regret copying more). I set it with Backup and
Verify
w/o Shadowing, clicked Finish (seems strange...why not start?) and went to
bed. This AM I was pleased to find a complete report window on my screen
now
with 7.6 Gigs copied and verified....2 hrs/14 mins to backup & 2 hrs/8
mins
to verify.

Almost there. When I opened the new external H/D to view and confirm the
transfer to see for myself, it asked what program I wanted to use to to
open
(the file ended in a .bkf). Having no clue I just tried MS Word and an
error
alert popped up indicating that there is a Serious Disc Error on this
file.
Suggestions?

Thanks, Jo

No, you aren't going to be able to open a file whose extension is bkf in
Word. It is a backup file. Ntbackup ought to able to understand the file.
See if NTbackup can give you a listing of the contents of the file.

Word probably crashed because it cannot handle backup files.

Jim

 

[Poprivet]

I have a 99% full 20Gig C Drive and am having difficulty backing up
onto an external 250Gig drive. While attempting to backup 4 gigs of
docs, the initial backup took about 1 1/2 hrs. Unfortuantely the
Backup Verification was only 10 minutes away from completion when it
froze with the following message..."The Backup utility ran out of
disc space creating the catalog files for the media".

I have no idea what this means? Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks, Jo

It doesn't have room to create its log files on the 20Gig drive.
Time to upgrade to a larger drive, don't you think? 80 to 160 Gigs are
pretty cheap right now.

 

[Guest]

Jim,

I did some more research and realize that this .bkf back up file stored on
my external drive will only be needed should a crash occur. I understand
that the XP back up uyility will allow me to restore this data, if and when
needed.

Thanks, Jo

 

[Guest]

Pop,

Realizing that I needed a larger C Drive I purchased a new 80 Gig built in.
Before installing this new drive, I wanted to back up the existing data on my
hard drive first. For this reason I purchased a new external 250 Gig for
back up. As I wrote earlier, I found myself in a catch22 when I found that
my drive was too full to be able to somehow store the temporary files needed
to create the new backup. I deleted several unused programs to make space
and all has now been resolved.

This has been a valuable learning experience. Thanks to all who have
responded.

Jo