D: Recovery

Hi!
I'm helping out a friend with her computer and there is one thing I cannot seem to figure out.
She has a few different drives (C,E,F,J etc.) which I all know what they do, but then she has one called D:RECOVERY that I cannot figure out what it does.
I assume its an automatic backup drive but I cant really be sure.
And everytime she starts up her computer it says "D:RECOVERY Full..................." (the ..... should be something else but I cannot remember).
Is there something I should do about it or just leave it as it is? If it is a backup she wants it to be working but Im not sure it does if it says its full?

She runs windows vista.

Thanks

 

Hey there K0rbeh

If she bought her computer from a well-known brand, they often load automated backup software, and partition the hard drive in to two segments. One for data and normal usage, and the other as the backup storage.

Does she have two hard drives? Maybe as you have more data to back up, the backup partition is full.

If this is the case, then it's an idea to alter the size of the backup partition using a tool called EASEUS Partition Manager. Increase the size of the partition and then reboot her computer. Note: You can only increase the backup partition size if you have free space on the other partition.

If that is not possible, then you should consider rearranging her hard drives a bit. If she does have a second hard drive that is bigger than the backup partition, try altering where the backup is stored. For that you'll need to find out what software is performing the backup, and alter its settings. Look for any program that has the words backup or sync in the title.

She might be using Vista's built in backup system. I don't run Vista so can't give precise instructions on how to find it. On my XP system, you go to Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Scheduled Tasks. If you see a scheduled backup, you can alter its properties and change where the backup is saved to.

Hope some of that rambling has helped you even a little bit

 

The D:RECOVERY is probably all the software, including Windows, that was installed on the computer when it was new. Nowadays, computer manufacturers usually put a D:RECOVERY on the hard drive in lieu of providing a CDs or DVDs with the computer for this software.

So, she should leave that partition alone. It's there to provide a way of restoring the system to its original configuration if necessary. If she has saved some of her own files on the partition, I suggest she identify them and move them to another partition. That might stop the D:RECOVERY Full..................." message. But, she should not move any files from that partition that are part of the original contents of it.

 

I also have one of those computers with a D drive that is the recovery drive. Apparently System Restore was monitoring both my C drive and my D drive and creating restore points on both. When the space on D ran low, then I started getting the same message that your friend is getting. I went into System Restore's settings and told it to not monitor D drive anymore so now the computer is no longer writing restore points to that drive.

The drive is locked to me so I am unable to access it to explore it or to write anything to it or delete anything from it myself...which is probably a good thing. :-D

As for the little message, I did go checking around the internet when this first started on my computer, and I think there is a way of getting rid of it by getting into the registry and telling it to stop checking that drive to see whether or not it's full. However, I am a 'fraidy cat and I would rather stay out of the registry if I possibly can. So when the little message pops up, I click on it and then another message comes up telling me there is a way I can clean unnecessary files out of that drive. I click on that and it opens a window showing what files can be safely deleted, but that amounts to zero according to that window, so I just click on that and then the drive full message disappears. These steps don't do anything whatsoever to the contents of drive D, nor would I want it to. If I don't do this, though, the little message will pop up every so often in the systray all day long.

System Restore is still monitoring C drive and creating restore points automatically and if/when I tell it to. I've restored the system a couple of times and I always get the message that D won't be changed or something to that effect, which is fine because nothing should change it, it should be left alone. ('Tis my hope, too, that if *I* can't write anything on it, than neither can malware. Funny thing is, AV scanners can scan it...)

Your friend should have something on her PC to create recovery discs, DVD's probably, although my Thinkpad needed CD's. My PC required DVD's. I was advised when I got my PC to do that right away, to create the discs. On my systems, one can only create those discs once. It took two DVD's for the HP desktop, a set of 9 CD's for the Thinkpad laptop.

My HP desktop is Windows XP Media Center Edition, the laptop is Windows XP Pro.

P.S. The laptop has the recovery drive completely hidden, I can't even see it from My Computer. Again, for the best.