recovery drive full

[gadusmorhua]

I am continuing to tidy up my wife's laptop, which runs vista home basic.I have noticed the recovery drive is full, with only7 MB of the 10GB remaining.I am perplexed as to why this should be- most of the files date back to when I bought the laptop (system files etc), and I presume these are important.If vista was running scheduled back ups, and has filled the disk this way, surely I would see that from the file dates? How do I go about deleting the non essential stuff here? My excuses again for my ineptitude, but the members were so helpful re. my RAM querie.
Gads

 

[archie123]

im assuming you mean the recovery partition , all it contains are the files you'll need to reformat/set back to factory defaults , its fine dont delete anything there

 

[whs]

You probably ran file backups. Vista assumes the D: drive as default for file backups - you therefore have to change the drive letter (e.g. to an external disk or USB stick) during the file backup setup.
The reason that D: is default is because in a genuine Microsoft Vista you get an installation disk and do not need a recovery partition on D:. But the OEMs were to cheap to give you an installation disk and stored the backup image on D: - from where you are supposed to burn your own installation/repair disk.
I suggest you delete all files from D: that do not belong there. Before you do though, burn the installation DVDs form the recovery partition (you'll need 2 or 3 DVDs). This way you make sure to have a valid installation/repair media - just in case you delete the wrong files. In case you are not sure which is which, take a snip of the opened D: and post it here. We'll try to help you to sort it out.

 

[gadusmorhua]

How do I 'take a snip' ?

 

[whs]

Here are instructions for the snipping tool and how to post it on the forum. Don't get confused by "HTG" - that's just another forum, same as here.

http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/topic/snipping-tool-handling?replies=16

Tutorial: How to post a picture on HTG « How-To Geek Forums

 

[gadusmorhua]

My wife's home basic doesn't have the snipping tool (Dell meanies?), unlike my home premium.However I downloaded Jing from a link on the tutorial, which seems infinitely more sophisticated.I have taken a snip of the opened recovery partition, though I suspect you will need to see the files opened too, but as this is my tester for using Jing I hope you bear with me.

2009-11-05_0834

I can see I'm going to get into computers, I've only previously used the internet but now the world is my lobster!

Oh, I forgot- I am now getting notification that the recovery D is full, and when I click on the balloon to remedy the situation (by deleting empty or unwanted files), all I get is the recycle bin, which I emptied when using ccleaner during a recent clean up.

Thanks again for your interest.

Gads

 

[theog]

Hi gadusmorhua

Folders Chesswood-Pc & Users should not be on your Recovery Partition.

 

[dinesh]

If its just a matter of free space, delete some big files from the recovery drive.

 

[whs]

Agreed, ChesswoodPC is the culprit. That you should delete or better even "move". All the other files are part of the recovery partition that you should NOT TOUCH!!!
Here is my Dell recovery partition for comparison. And don't worry about the extra bin file on yours. That is just a control file that should stay.

BTW: don't delete "Users" as Theog suggested. That is an important system file.

 

[gadusmorhua]

After deleting the Chesswood file I now have 7GB of the partition free.What I found confusing was that when I clicked on properties it showed the file as 0 bytes, only when I opened it prior to delete did I find it contained two folders, the contents of which were too big for the recycling bin.Having just bought a portable hard drive I now have the data from all our computers , so I don't need to worry about losing that.I've read it is worth burning the recovery to a dvd, so I shall do that.
Thanks again for all your help, apart from sorting out the recovery partition I am also finding snipping with Jing very useful !
Gads

 

[archie123]

im not really getting this , its your recovery partition , those are periodic backups that are overwritten everytime a new one is created why do you want to delete them anyway? you cant use that space

 

[theog]

im not really getting this , its your recovery partition , those are periodic backups that are overwritten everytime a new one is created why do you want to delete them anyway? you cant use that space

A recovery Partition is for recovery, not for Back Ups as it is too small.

 

[theog]

Agreed, ChesswoodPC is the culprit. That you should delete or better even "move". All the other files are part of the recovery partition that you should NOT TOUCH!!!
Here is my Dell recovery partition for comparison. And don't worry about the extra bin file on yours. That is just a control file that should stay.

BTW: don't delete "Users" as Theog suggested. That is an important system file.

I was looking at the date of the users folder, looks tobe too young tobe part of the recovery.
Users folder date 04/11/2009

 

[archie123]

yes im aware of this , i thought it was set to make periodic snapshots of the system for recovery purposes , these are stored in the recovery partition when a recovery is needed it uses the "chestwood" file to format to an earlier date instead of "factory settings" I have recovery software that works this way so i wrongly assumed this was the same thing DOH

 

[whs]

For snipping, you may also check out this program that I use. It is very practical for annotations. A+ Freeware - Multimedia & Design - FastStone Capture 5.3 (last freeware version)

 

[gadusmorhua]

For snipping, you may also check out this program that I use. It is very practical for annotations. A+ Freeware - Multimedia & Design - FastStone Capture 5.3 (last freeware version)

downloaded, and now my favourite!

 

[whs]

Put the shortcut into your startup folder. Then it will also do the sceenshots and it will be handy in the task tray (notification area). To do that, make a FastStone Capture shortcut on the desktop. Then type SHELL:STARTUP into the start/search field and hit Enter. That will bring up the startup folder into which you can now drag the shortcut. Then just close the startup folder. On the next reboot, you will see the icon in the system tray next to the clock.

 

[gadusmorhua]

Thanks for that tip, I've previously clicked on pin to start menu, but that puts the icon on the left,where it is permanently visible.Much better to have icons in the notification tray where they can be hidden, if not in use.