Recovery Disk running out of room

Hi all, novice question here...

I am running Windows 7 on an older Gateway desktop, and I've begun receving warning messages that my Recovery Disk is getting too full. The total size is 33.7 GB, and I have Free Space of only 868 MB.

I went through the disk and found some stuff my kids saved on there (photos, documents, music) and I deleted that stuff, but it still seems too full.

I don't know how best to safely delete other files that should not be on the Recovery Disk, or can I make the Disk size larger? My C Disk size is 432 GB, and I have about 250 GB free on that drive.

Thanks!

 

Hi,

There are partitioning programs that should allow you to increase the size of the recovery partition.

But my first thought is that 33gb is large for a recovery partition. Usually they are 16gb or less and hidden so that you can't inadvertently write to them.

I would see if there is a program under Start>All Programs and then some Gateway folder that would allow you to burn DVDs for recovery to have a backup copy of the recovery files. That gives you an extra copy of the recovery files just in case.

Can you give a list of a few of the files on that partition so we can see if they look like typical recovery files?

 

can I make a safety backup onto an external USB hard drive I have connected to this pc? if not, I will burn to a DVD as you suggest.

on the D Recovery partition I show the following:

PROGRAM FILES (contains about 25 subfolders)

RECOVERY (contains two folders, AUTORON and INFO)

USERS (contains 14 subfolders)

WINDOWS (contains about 30 subfolders and some stand alone files)

I don't have the knowledge to understand the difference between essential and clutter, but I suspect we have been saving unnecessary files to the D drive.

Thanks very much for any further advice!

 

Hmm, It is very unusual for a recovery partition to have Windows and Users since they are actual Windows files. Usually a recovery partition has only a few large files that contain compressed versions of the files needed to reinstall Windows. I'm not really sure what to tell you.

Do you use Windows Backup? (I'm not familiar how it saves files, I just want to know if that is a possibility.)

Take a look at both C:\Users and D:\Users do you recognize most of the username folders? Are they the same?

Edit: How big is your external? I'm thinking you could backup your whole C: drive. It would be slightly smaller than the used space. So that would be 200gb but it would contain all your personal files.

As far as backing up the recovery partition, I'm not sure if that would work because I don't know how you would access it if you had a problem. I think if you have a Gateway program to burn the recovery DVD (usually takes about 3 discs) that would get you the essential files to reload the OS to factory settings in an emergency. Was Win7 the original OS?

 

i think this was originally a Vista machine, and I bought and installed Windows 7....

as to your other questions, yes I do recognize all the users....

I think the easiest solution now is for me to reinstall Windows 7....all of my personal files, photos, music, etc are backed up on two USB external drivers, so I really don't risk anything by starting fresh, except a lot of wasted time!

thanks very much for the troubleshooting!!

 

Ok.

You might want to just quickly open a command prompt and just make sure you are actually running Win7 from C:. It is very unlikely you are running from D: but I just want to rule that out if you have a second.

Go to Start and type in cmd and hit enter. The command prompt window should have a prompt like C:\Windows\system32> rather than D:\Windows\system32>

If it does that is fine. And I agree a fresh install is a relatively easy solution.

 

i did the cmd prompt, and it showed c drive

now I have started the clean install, following a checklist of about 100 steps I found online, but I am already confused.....
the checklist tells me to delete the partition where windows is installed and i see that on my screen (Disk 0 Partition 2), so I am planning to delete that one...but I also see the RECOVERY partition that is almost full...should I delete that too? Or do I leave that alone, and later in the process it will be "cleaned"?

 

It won't automatically be cleaned. Is your Win7 a full installation disc rather than an upgrade? I just want to be sure that you will not need that recovery partition later. If it is a Vista recovery partition and you have a full copy of Win7 then it is not necessary and you would probably never use it.

If you are unsure you can just proceed with the install and format the recovery partition later. You will still get the low disc space message until it is either formatted (wiped clean) or resized to make it bigger.

If your current Win7 is working OK you can skip the reinstall and manually wipe the recovery partition or resize it.

 

I just went for it and deleted both partitions...The Win 7 install disk I have is an UPGRADE version, but it seemed to load just fine even though I deleted both partitions....right now I am loading 97 updates!

Do I need to create a RECOVERY partition with this new clean install? Right now My Computer shows only a Local Disk C: with 452 GB free of 465 GB total.

Thanks for your help with this!!

 

You don't need to create a recovery partition but you should probably create a system backup image after your updates are installed. That way you have an image of clean install to restore if you ever need it.

I believe the way an upgrade disc works is that it must see an installed version of Windows on the HD before it will go into the installation. Now, it worked fine because it saw your Win7 and validated it and then said it could go ahead and do a new install. If your HD failed and you had to replace it then I believe the upgrade disc would not let you install to a new HD because it wouldn't see a previous Windows installation.

What I would do is when you have the basic updates complete is to use a program like Macrium Reflect to make an image of your entire HD and put it on your external. You would not use the "sector by sector" backup which would copy free space but leave that box unticked. That way your image should only be about 16gb. Keep that on your external in case you ever have to reload the OS on a new HD.

These are some screenshots http://www.macrium.com/gallery.aspx
The free version is available here at MG.

When you are ready I can probably troubleshoot any problems you may have. I've used that program several times.

 

THanks again, your advice has basically helped me save this old system!!

I'll let you know if I run into any issues on the imaging.