FabSwingers.com forum: CPU Drive

By *un_Juice OP Couple
over a year ago

Nr Chester

We have an additional drive in the laptop that has just a few things stored in there and we've used it for a back up. We keep getting prompted that there's low disc space on it now. Are we able to delete it somehow until we get an external ? Or to be honest the back up wasn,t needed it was just a test. We need to free up the space ? Never done this before, it shows as being J's pc but hover over the file and it says empty. Is the back up file then read only/hidden ? Help appreciated.

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By *histler21Man
over a year ago

Ipswich

Just because it may ge low on disk space isn't necessarily a problem. It could be set up to hold the paging file (which could be large). If you have used it tobstoreca backup - only you can know whether it is safe to delete it.

You could try defragmenting the drive to see if it releases some space.

How big does windows say the drive is? And how much space is taken/remaining?

Is there anything you can move onto the "main" disk?

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By *un_Juice OP Couple
over a year ago

Nr Chester

The drives 160 gig. I'd say only 500 mb is used for storage but it suggests only 4 gig remain so it must be holding a back up of what it allowed from c drive. When i hover over the files in d they are supposedly empty. Tried defragging it cleaned about 80 kb loool

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By *histler21Man
over a year ago

Ipswich

It is possible that all the Restore Point saves is being held there.

I can't remember how to purge some of that stuff at the moment - a search engine starting with the seventh letter of the alphabet might help here.

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By *un_Juice OP Couple
over a year ago

Nr Chester

Possibly we'll try. Wondering if that would require best part of 155 gig

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By *histler21Man
over a year ago

Ipswich

Windows gobbles up large quantities of space, so it wouldn't surprise me...

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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago

Hi there

You will only physically only have one hard drive in the laptop. If its showing two thats because there have been two partitions. Most laptops in recent years show two drives (partitions) one is the main drive to use the other is a recovery version of windows held on the other.

The second partition will hold the windows recover so if your computer crashes you can reinstall windows using a recovery cd or a program to recovery windows. It actually uses the second partition to reinstall windows from.

You would need to use a partition program to merge the two partitions into one large one then you would have the full drive capacity to use.

You would lose the windows recovery feature doing that though and would have to buy windows pack if you wanted to clean install windows again.

I wouldn't recommend merging partitions (the two drives) together unless you know what you are doing though.

I have done this on a few laptop to gain the full drive space.

Its something you maybe should get someone to do who knows what they are doing.

Just thought id explain and put you on the right track though.

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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago

The space you cant use though might also be large though because windows is maybe using that to store system restores along with the full windows recovery. System restore is a quick solution if your windows misbehaves it takes mini backups of important system files every few weeks or when something changes on your computer so then if there is a prob you just goto system restore and choose an earlier restore point. It will then replace certain files to fix the problem. This is not a full install as what I referred to as a windows recovery which will be stored on the second partition.

Defrag will simply rearrange files into a more practical and quicker order this wont really save any disk space and is really unneeded for years as newer version of windows arrange files logically from scratch. It kinda like rearranging items on a shelf unit to be easy to find not really to make more space.

As for a pagaging file that wont make any difference again is really unneeded in newer versions of windows and computers.

A paging file is used for when you are close to running out of memory (RAM) and windows moves some of the data from the RAM memory to your hard drive temporary to create free memory.

Again modern computers have more and faster ram and page files are not necessary now and take up little space and windows would only use one if you have a really low amount of ram or and a very old computer thats struggling.

I think that covers it phew im knackered now lol

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By *un_Juice OP Couple
over a year ago

Nr Chester

Appreciate all help and advice just a bit confused as to why the so called d drive was always free in its entirety and now every few minutes a prompt in the system tray saying we require disc space running low :/

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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago

What version of windows are you using?

The data could be hidden and wont be seen without using special programs and the longer you use the computer the more system restore backups will be made and cause the space running low.

It could be a few other things but hard to tell without examining the laptop.

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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago

Try downloading a program called CCleaner it's free and will clean all rubbish files from your drives and all tempory internet files etc etc, may just free up quiet a lot of space, might be worth a shot as it's free..

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By *un_Juice OP Couple
over a year ago

Nr Chester

Was just updating it as you wrote the message thanks.

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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago

Ccleaner is useful but wont free up 155 gig it will only free up tiny amounts.

The hard drive partition has a windows full recovery on it and restore points thats why the amount of data so called lost is not there.

The partition needs to be cleared and then merge with the other one to make one big usable hard drive.

Nearly all laptop makers do this so you have a hidden version of windows on the second drive (partition) so you can recover and reinstall windows without having to buy a boxed version of windows to clean install after a big fault.

I have done this on my new laptop and many others because I already have windows so don't need the backup on on the machine taking up space.

Get advance from a professional or take to a local computer shop who can do this for you.

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